On Wednesday 16 July 2025, the Royal Society inducted twenty-eight new Fellows and eight new Honorary Fellows into the society at the annual RSL summer party, hosted at the Garden Museum.
At the event, new Fellows and Honorary Fellows elected in 2025 signed their names in the RSL roll book using a pen from its permanent collection. The RSL’s pens are from some of the most historically influential UK writers including Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, T.S. Eliot, Andrea Levy, Jean Rhys and Arnold Wesker. The RSL Roll Book dates back to 1825, five years after the founding of the charity in 1820, and features the signature of Fellows and Honorary Fellows elected over the past 200 years.
2025 Fellows and Honorary Fellows
Twenty-eight new Fellows were announced, including: Kia Abdullah, Jason Allen-Paisant, Gillian Allnutt, Marina Benjamin, Fiona Benson, Sita Brahmachari, Colette Bryce, Mark Cocker, Lucy Ellmann, Ekow Eshun, David Farr, Sally Gardner, M. John Harrison, Samantha Harvey, Gwyneth Hughes, Louise Kennedy, Damian Le Bas, Sarah LeFanu, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Nick Makoha, Hollie McNish, Lucasta Miller, Ingrid Persaud, Ian Sansom, Rachel Seiffert, Rick Stroud, Jonathan Sumption and Patrick Wright.
Eight new Honorary Fellows were announced, including: Tracy Bohan, Nic Bottomley, Annette Brook, Ruth Harrison, Lynette Linton, Caroline Michel, Richard Ovenden and Simon Savidge.
‘It’s wonderful to see another round of outstanding writers and people in literature receiving honours as Fellows and Honorary Fellows at this year’s summer party,’ said Bernardine Evaristo, who led proceedings as RSL President. ‘The Royal Society of Literature bestows these honours for life on some of the most accomplished figures in British literature. I continue to be amazed every year at the impressive credentials of our new Fellows who work in every area of literature and who increasingly come from a wide range of backgrounds, thereby reflecting the varied populations in our country today. Now, more than ever, the literature sector needs to be supported and these Fellowships are powerful and prestigious tokens of acknowledgement that recognise and reward brilliant individuals for their crucial role in sustaining literature.’
2025 Benson Medallist
Founded in 1916 by scholar, author and RSL Fellow A.C. Benson, the Benson Medal honours service to literature across a whole career. This year the Benson Medal has been awarded Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian and the Helen Hamlyn Director of the University Libraries (the senior executive officer of the Bodleian Libraries). He holds this post together with being Head of Gardens, Libraries & Museums. Richard serves as President of the Digital Preservation Coalition, and as a member of the Advisory Council of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, based in Berlin. He has written extensively on the history of the book, on the history of photography, and on current concerns in the library, archive and information worlds and is the author of Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack (2020).
