Helen Oyeyemi and other Writers Win Top Awards


The highly gited writer Helen Oyeyemi is among the winners of various literary Awards as announced by the prestigious Society of Authors in the UK. She won £3,000 for her latest novel White is for Witching published last November.

The winners in full:

The Elizabeth Longford Prize

Winner: Tristram Hunt received £5,000 for The Frock-Coated Communist – The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (Allen Lane)

The Travelling Scholarships

Winners: Sam North, Lemn Sissay and Roma Tearne - each received £1,500


The Somerset Maugham Awards

Winners: Jacob Polley, £5,000 for Talk of the Town (Picador); Helen Oyeyemi, £3,000 for White is for Witching (Picador), and Ben Wilson, £2,000 for What Price Liberty? (Faber)


The Olive Cook Award

Winner: Carys Davies received £1,000 for The Quiet
Joint runners-up: Susannah Rickards for The Paperback Macbeth and Simon van Booy for Little Birds


The McKitterick Prize

Winner: Raphael Selbourne received £4,000 for Beauty (Tindal Street Press)


The Betty Trask Prize and Awards

Prize winner: Nadifa Mohamed received £10,000 for Black Mamba Boy (HarperCollins)
Award winners: Evie Wyld received £7,000 for After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (Cape), Jenn Ashworth received £1,500 for A Kind of Intimacy (Arcadia) and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani received £1,500 for I Do Not Come to You by Chance (Weidenfeld)


Poetry Awards

The Eric Gregory Awards

Winners: Phil Brown, Matthew Gregory, Sarah Howe, Abigail Parry and Ahren Warner – each received £4,000

The Cholmondeley Awards

Winners: Gillian Allnutt, Colette Bryce, Gwyneth Lewis and Deryn Rees-Jones – each received £1,500