RSL Ondaatje Prize
The annual award of £10,000 for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place.
RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020 – The Longlist
We are pleased to announce the longlist for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020.
| Jay Bernard | Surge | (Chatto & Windus) |
| Jane Clarke | When the Tree Falls | (Bloodaxe Books) |
| Laura Cumming | On Chapel Sands | (Chatto & Windus) |
| Tishani Doshi | Small Days and Nights | (Bloomsbury Circus) |
| Lucy Ellmann | Ducks, Newburyport | (Galley Beggar Press) |
| Luan Goldie | Nightingale Point | (HQ Fiction) |
| Adam Higginbotham | Midnight in Chernobyl | (Bantam Press) |
| Kathleen Jamie | Surfacing | (Sort of Books) |
| Robert Macfarlane | Underland | (Hamish Hamilton) |
| Tim Mackintosh-Smith | Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes, and Empires | (Yale University Press London) |
| Philip Marsden | The Summer Isles | (Granta Books) |
| Robert Minhinnick | Nia | (Seren) |
| Anita Mir | The Inside City | (Unbound Digital) |
| Max Porter | Lanny | (Faber & Faber) |
| Roger Robinson | A Portable Paradise | (Peepal Tree Press) |
| Elif Shafak | 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World | (Viking) |
| Anna Sherman | The Bells of Old Tokyo: Travels in Japanese Time | (Picador) |
| Jumoke Verissimo | A Small Silence | (Cassava Republic) |
Please read the press release for more information.
This year’s judges are Peter Frankopan (Chair), Pascale Petit and Evie Wyld.
The 2020 shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 20 April. The winner will be announced on Monday 4 May.
If you have any media enquiries, please contact Annette Brook: annette.brook@rsliterature.org.
Winner 2019
Aida Edemariam won the 2019 RSL Ondaatje Prize with The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History (4th Estate). The annual Prize of £10,000 is awarded for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place.
I’ve always loved this prize, its generous inclusion of all forms of writing, its assertion that place is not incidental, mere background or local colour, but the thing itself. I’m beyond honoured and grateful to have been awarded it for The Wife’s Tale.
Aida Edemariam – winner, RSL Ondaatje Prize 2019
For more information on the winner and other shortlisted authors, please see our press release.
2019’s judges were Sabrina Mahfouz, Michèle Roberts and Ian Thomson.
Past winners
| 2019 | Aida Edemariam | The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History |
| 2018 | Pascale Petit | Mama Amazonica |
| 2017 | Francis Spufford | Golden Hill |
| 2016 | Peter Pomerantsev | Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia |
| 2015 | Justin Marozzi | Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood |
| 2014 | Alan Johnson | This Boy |
| 2013 | Philip Hensher | Scenes from Early Life |
| 2012 | Rahul Bhattacharya | The Sly Company of People Who Care |
| 2011 | Edmund de Waal | The Hare with Amber Eyes |
| 2010 | Ian Thomson | The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica |
| 2009 | Adam Nicolson | Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History |
| 2008 | Graham Robb | The Discovery of France |
| 2007 | Hisham Matar | In the Country of Men |
| 2006 | James Meek | The People’s Act of Love |
| 2005 | Rory Stewart | The Places In Between |
| 2004 | Louisa Waugh | Hearing Birds Fly |
