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
