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 Winner
We are delighted to announce the winner of the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020 is Roger Robinson with his collection A Portable Paradise. Animated video by Liang-Hsin Huang. Please read the Winner Press Release for further information. This year’s judges are Peter Frankopan (Chair), Pascale Petit and Evie Wyld.
Roger Robinson will be appearing at the following events:
- 28 May, 6.30pm Hay Festival Digital – in conversation with Peter Frankopan
- 28 May, 7.30pm, WORD Leicester will be showcasing Roger’s poem ‘On Nurses’ on their Facebook page
- 12 June, 10pm BBC Radio 3’s The Verb will feature Roger in a programme about writers of the Caribbean diaspora.
If you have any media enquiries, please contact Annette Brook: annette.brook@rsliterature.org.
Watch our specially commissioned animated video announcing the 2020 RSL Ondaatje Prize winner:
RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020 – The Shortlist
- Jay Bernard Surge (Chatto & Windus)
- Tishani Doshi Small Days and Nights (Bloomsbury Circus)
- Robert Macfarlane Underland (Hamish Hamilton)
- Elif Shafak 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking)
- Jumoke Verissimo A Small Silence (Cassava Republic)
Please read the Shortlist press release for further information.
Watch our specially commissioned animation announcing the 2020 RSL Ondaatje Prize shortlist:
RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020 – The Longlist
| Jane Clarke | When the Tree Falls | (Bloodaxe Books) |
| Laura Cumming | On Chapel Sands | (Chatto & Windus) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| Anna Sherman | The Bells of Old Tokyo: Travels in Japanese Time | (Picador) |
Please read the Longlist press release for more information.
Winner 2019
Aida Edemariam won the 2019 RSL Ondaatje Prize with The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History (4th Estate).
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 |
