Today, the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) announces its newest literary prize, established thanks to the generosity of RSL President Bernardine Evaristo. The RSL Pioneer Prize seeks to acknowledge and celebrate pioneering British women writers – across all genres – who have been trailblazers in their field, especially in the past when it was more difficult for women to have successful careers as writers. Evaristo is donating the cash prize of £100,000 from her recent Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award to fund this new prize. Managed by the UK charity The Women’s Prize Trust, the Outstanding Contribution Award was a special one-off honour marking the 30th anniversary of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2025, funded by Bukhman Philanthropies. The award celebrates Bernardine’s body of work, her transformative impact on literature and her unwavering dedication to uplifting under-represented voices across the cultural landscape.
‘It felt right that I should share this substantial and unexpected windfall with other older women writers as a way to acknowledge their pioneer spirits and achievements,’ says Evaristo. ‘It’s very easy to forget the feminist struggles of the past and the intrepid women who paved the way for successive generations, and it’s important to celebrate our trailblazers while they are still around to enjoy it: to remember them, to thank them, to honour them.’
The RSL Pioneer Prize, which will run for ten years from 2025, will be awarded annually to a living female writer over the age of 60 who has been a pioneer in their field. Each year the RSL Pioneer Prize will focus on one literary genre, with a jury of specialists in that field – who could be agents, literature workers, publishers, critics or writers – who will choose the winning writer. The definition of pioneer in this context is to mean women writers who broke new ground in literature and other definitions of the term ‘pioneer’ that are deemed appropriate by each jury.
The winner will receive £10,000 and be asked to spotlight a deceased and forgotten female writer who inspired them when they were starting out. Additionally, the winning writer will select three emerging younger writers to spotlight. All of these writers will be celebrated by the RSL throughout the year.
In this, its inaugural year, the selection of the winning writer has been made by Evaristo. She has chosen to honour Maureen Duffy – poet, playwright, novelist, activist and non-fiction writer. Across her long career, Duffy has brought to light previously unspoken stories; articulated the unheard voices of women and working-class protagonists; created a Humanist mass; and reaffirmed the legacy of Aphra Behn among countless other achievements. She has been a passionate advocate for author rights and LGBTQIA+ rights, and at the forefront of making changes which are still felt today.
The author of more than 60 published works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays, Duffy always had an interest in writing. She won her first poetry competition at the age of 17 and completed her first full-length play, Pearson, whilst still an undergraduate at King’s College, London. She began writing full-time in 1961 following a commission from Granada TV, and went on to write widely for stage, screen and radio. She has a dozen poetry collections and almost 30 plays to her name, as well as being a prolific novelist and the author of seminal works of non-fiction including her biography of Aphra Behn which led to renewed interest in, and scholarship of, Behn’s life and works. Duffy was one of the first group of women to have extracts of their plays staged by the National Theatre in 1968, and the first to have a full run of a play, Rites, produced at the Jeanette Cochrane Theatre where the National Theatre was then based.
Duffy’s openly lesbian bestselling novel The Microcosm was ground-breaking when published in 1966, and she also combined her activism with her art around the themes of animal rights and, later, author rights. She co-founded the Writers’ Action Group in 1972 and was one of five founding members of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) in 1977, playing a pivotal role in the campaign to establish Public Lending Right on behalf of authors so that they received payments based on public-library loans of their books.
‘When I conceived of the prize Maureen Duffy was always foremost in my mind as the recipient because she is a true trailblazer in every sense of the word,’ Evaristo continues. ‘Raised in a working-class, single-parent family, she has had a prodigious, prolific and varied career as a brilliant, imaginative and groundbreaking writer since the early 1960s, as well as been an advocate for writers. She was instrumental in campaigning for writers’ licencing rights, which led to the formation of the Authors Licensing Collection Society, which has now generated nearly £700 million for writers since 1977.’
Duffy, who was nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (then called the Orange Prize) in 1999 for her novel Restitution, received news of her award earlier this month when Evaristo visited her at home. ‘I’m very grateful for the acknowledgement of my work and for this prize,’ she said. ‘I hope this encourages writers to keep on writing, because it is a hard thing to support yourself as a writer in this country.’
Maureen’s win will be celebrated at a special event at the British Library on Sunday 30 November. Evaristo will host an afternoon of tributes from writers who have been influenced by Duffy’s writing and activism, testifying to her enduring impact and legacy, and the power of amplifying older women writers’ voices.
The second RSL Pioneer Prize will be awarded in autumn 2026. The panel for next year will be chaired by Ruth Borthwick, Chair of PEN and formerly Director of the Arvon Foundation and Director of Literature at the Southbank Centre, with Judith Palmer, Director of the Poetry Society and Sarah Howe, award-winning poet, academic and Chatto & Windus Poetry Editor.