The Benson Medal
The Benson Medal was founded in 1916 by A.C. Benson, scholar, author and RSL Fellow, ‘in respect of meritorious works in poetry, fiction, history and belles lettres’.
The medal honours a whole career rather than a single work, has been awarded several times to writers in other languages, and is often awarded those who are not writers, but who have done conspicuous service to literature.
Recipients
1917 Gabriele d’Annunzio, Benito Perez Galdos, Maurice Barres
1923 Lytton Strachey
1925 Gordon Bottomley, George Santayana
1926 Percy Lubbock, Robert Lynd, Harold Nicolson
1927 F.A. Simpson, Helen Waddell
1930 Edmund Blunden
1931 Stella Benson
1934 Edith Sitwell
1938 E.M. Forster, G.M. Young
1939 F.L. Lucas, Andrew Young
1940 John Gawsworth, Christopher Hassall
1941 Christopher La Farge
1952 F.S. Boas
1966 J.R.R. Tolkien, Rebecca West, E.V. Rieu
1969 Cecil Woodham-Smith
1975 Philip Larkin
1979 R.K. Narayan
1981 Odysseus Elytis, Sacheverell Sitwell
1982 A.L. Rowse
1989 Anthony Burgess, Nadine Gordimer
1990 Wole Soyinka
1993 Julien Green
1996 Shusaku Endo
2000 Christopher Fry
2002 David Sutton, Anita Desai
2004 James Parker, Maureen Duffy
2005 Edward Upward
2006 Ronald Blythe, Joan Winterkorn
2007 Nadine Gordimer
2008 John Saumarez Smith, Douglas Matthews
2009 Mark Le Fanu, Kay Dunbar
2010 Al Alvarez
2011 Diana Athill, Francis King
2012 David Pease, Jenny Uglow
2013 Wm. Roger Louis
2014 Deirdre Le Faye, Valentina Polukhina
2015 Nancy Sladek
2017 Margaret Busby, Carmen Callil, Mary-Kay Wilmers
2018 Liz Calder
2019 Susheila Nasta
2020 Boyd Tonkin
2021 Alastair Niven
2022 Sandra Agard
