Armfield, Ransom win 2023 Polari Prizes
In the UK, Julia Armfield and Jon Ransom have won the 2023 Polari Prizes for work that explores LGBTQ+ experience, reports the Bookseller.
Armfield won the £2000 (A$3823) Polari Prize, for Our Wives Under the Sea (Picador), which was described by judge and former Polari Prize winner Joelle Taylor as ‘opening up what we believe is possible from queer writing’. ‘It is a strange, speculative, poetic and thrilling novel—a heart turner as much as a page turner,’ said Taylor.
Ransom won the £1000 (A$1912) Polari First Book Prize for The Whale Tattoo (Muswell Press). Judge and former Polari First Book Prize winner Adam Zmith said: ‘Ransom’s novel is suffused with salt air and gay longing. It transported me to a life that is not my own, and yet one where I recognised myself, too. Ransom conjures up gorgeously evocative images for his hostile locations and finds love and energy there.’
Paul Burston, founder and chair of judges for both categories, said of the winning books: ‘These are novels which entertain, seduce and provoke thought. They take us out of ourselves and invite us to explore other worlds.’
Last year’s Polari Prize winner was Taylor for her poetry collection C+nto & Othered Poems (The Westbourne Press) and the Polari First Book Prize went to Zmith for Deep Sniff (Watkins).
Category: International news
