Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses winner announced

In the UK, Eley Williams’ short-story collection Attrib. and Other Stories (Influx Press) has won the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses, reports the Bookseller.

The £5000 (A$9110) prize money is split between author and publisher, with £3000 (A$5470) going to Influx Press and £2000 (A$3640) to Williams.

The prize’s founder, Neil Griffiths, said the winning book was ‘exactly what the Republic of Consciousness Prize was set up to reward’. ‘Eley Williams is that rare thing, a deeply serious writer working on a playful level. In the middle of her story “Smote”, I was floored. I realised I was reading a prose poet of a very high calibre indeed, and I said to myself: this book will win. The judges agreed.’

The other shortlisted books—Blue Self-Portrait (Noémi Lefebvre, trans by Sophie Lewis, Les Fugitives), Darker with the Lights on (David Hayden, Little Island Press), Die, My Love (Ariana Harwicz, trans by Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff, Charco Press), Gaudy Bauble (Isabel Waidner, Dostoevsky Wannabe) and We that are Young (Preti Taneja, Galley Beggar Press)—receive £1500 (A$2730) each.

The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses was launched in 2017 by Griffiths to recognise ‘brave, bold and brilliant’ literature from small presses’. It is open to independent publishers from the UK and Ireland with no more than five employees.

Influx Press last year launched a Kickstarter campaign to grow its business, and in November last year opened its submissions exclusively to women of colour to expand the range of voices and scope of work it publishes.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, John Keene won last year’s inaugural Republic of Consciousness Prize for his book Counternarratives (Fitzcarraldo Editions).

Category: International news