Warwick Prize for Writing

The Warwick Prize for Writing was an international literary prize, worth £25,000, that was given biennially for writing excellence in the English language, in any genre or form, on a theme that changes with every award.^[1] It was launched by the University of Warwick in July 2008. Past nominations included scientific research, novels, poems, e-books and plays.^[2] Works were open to be nominated by staff, students and alumni of Warwick University, and since 2014, the publishing industry.^[1]

The Prize Management Group

The Prize Management Group of the Warwick Prize for Writing was made up of senior professors and administrative staff drawn from across the faculties and included the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick. The Prize Management Group was responsible for the administration of the prize, including agreeing the rules, the guidelines for the judges and the arrangements for the award of the prize. The Prize Management Group was also responsible for choosing the judging panel.

2015

The 2015 judging panel was chaired by A. L. Kennedy, accompanied by author and academic Robert Macfarlane, actress and director Fiona Shaw, physician and writer Gavin Francis, and Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler.

The theme for the 2015 prize was 'Instinct'. The winner is in bold.

Author	Shortlist titles
Marilynne Robinson	Lila
Phil Klay	Redeployment
Rebecca Goss	Her Birth
Karen Joy Fowler	We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Mark Vanhoenacker	Skyfaring
Karl Ove Knausgaard, translator Don Bartlett	A Man in Love

2013

The judges for the Warwick Prize for Writing 2013 were Ian Sansom of the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick (Chair), Marina Warner CBE and Ed Byrne, Vice-Chancellor and President of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

2013 was the first time the prize was won by a poet.

Winner is in bold.^[3]

Author	Shortlist titles
Jim Al-Khalili	Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science
Amy Espeseth	Sufficient Grace
Cordelia Fine	Delusions of Gender
Etgar Keret	Suddenly, a Knock on the Door
Robert Macfarlane	The Old Ways
Alice Oswald	Memorial

Author	Additional longlist titles
Julian Barnes	The Sense of an Ending
Jonathan Franzen	Freedom
Amitav Ghosh	River of Smoke
Robert Gray	Cumulus
Thomas Keneally	The Daughters of Mars
Nidaa Khoury	Book of Sins

2011

The theme for the 2011 award was "colour".^[1]

Michael Rosen chaired the panel of five judges for the 2011 Warwick Prize for Writing, and was joined by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick, Professor Nigel Thrift, award-winning author Jenny Uglow, Times Literary Editor Erica Wagner and writer, cultural critic, public speaker and broadcaster Baroness Lola Young.

Winner is in bold.^[4]

Author	Shortlist titles
Nadeem Aslam	The Wasted Vigil
Peter Forbes	Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage
Aminatta Forna	The Memory of Love
Peter D McDonald	The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences
Michael Taussig	What Color is the Sacred?
Derek Walcott	White Egrets

Author	Longlist titles
Nadeem Aslam	The Wasted Vigil
Mark Bradley	Colour and Meaning in Ancient Rome
Jasper Fforde	Shades of Grey
Peter Forbes	Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage
Aminatta Forna	The Memory of Love
Peter D McDonald	The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences
Rachel Polonsky	Molotov's Magic Lantern
Lisa Robertson	Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip
Iain Sinclair	Hackney, That Rose Red Empire
Michael Taussig	What Color is the Sacred?
Derek Walcott	White Egrets

2009

The theme for the inaugural Warwick Prize for Writing was complexity. A longlist of 20 candidate titles was announced in November 2008, followed by the shortlist of six titles announced on 22 January 2009. The winner, Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, was announced on 24 February 2009.

China Miéville, award-winning writer of weird fiction, chaired the panel of five judges. Professor Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, provided a vital link between the Prize Management Group and the Judging Panel. The journalist Maya Jaggi, the author and translator Maureen Freely and the literary blogger Stephen Mitchelmore completed the Judging Panel.

Winner is in bold.^[5]

Author	Shortlist titles
Lisa Appignanesi	Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800
Francisco Goldman	The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed Bishop Gerardi?
Stuart A Kauffman	Reinventing the Sacred
Naomi Klein	The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Alex Ross	The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century
Enrique Vila-Matas (trans. Jonathan Dunne)	Montano's Malady

Author	Longlist titles
Michael Blastland & Andrew Dilnot	The Tiger That Isn't
Rachel Blau DuPlessis	Torques: Drafts 58-76
John Burnside	Glister
Mike Davies	Planet of Slums
John Hughes	Someone Else
Thomas Legendre	The Burning
David Livingstone	Adam's Ancestors: Race, Religion and the Politics of Human Origins
Robert Macfarlane	The Wild Places
James Martin	The Meaning of the 21st Century
Ian McDonald	Brasyl
Joseph O'Neill	Netherland
Juan Gabriel Vasquez (trans. Anne McLean)	The Informers
Ivan Vladislavic	Portrait with Keys
James Walvin	The Trader The Owner The Slave

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c About the prize, official website.
^ "Comparing apples and pears, a new writing prize is the first to accept entries across all genres, from novels to scientific research", New Scientist, 21 March 2009, p. 45. Article quote: "Complexity was the theme of the first Warwick prize for writing, the only cross-disciplinary writing competition in any format."
^ Liz Bury (25 September 2013). "Alice Oswald wins Warwick prize". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
^ Benedicte Page (24 March 2011). "Cultural history of camouflage wins Warwick Prize for Writing". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
^ Alison Flood (24 February 2009). "Outstanding 'complexity' wins Naomi Klein £50,000 inaugural Warwick prize". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 December 2013.