О премии

Премия Сомерсета Моэма (англ. Somerset Maugham Award) — национальная британская литературная премия, присуждаемая старейшим в Великобритании объединением писателей «Society of Authors» (существует с 1884 года).

Премия была учреждена в 1947 году известным английским писателем Сомерсетом Моэмом с целью финансовой поддержки молодых писателей.

Лауреатом премии может стать любой писатель не старше 30 лет.
Премия вручается ежегодно в мае месяце.
Общий размер годового фонда – £12 000 фунтов стерлингов, которые распределяются среди авторов – победителей в номинациях:
художественная литература
нон - фикшн
поэзия.

Премия может быть использована для различных поездок - стажировок за рубежом. В настоящее время премию присваивает старейшая британская литературная профессиональная организация «Общество писателей» (Society of Authors), основанная в 1884 году. Сегодня число ее членов превышает 8 тысяч человек.

Жанры: Зарубежная литература, Поэзия, Современная проза Страны: Великобритания Язык: Английский Первое вручение: 1947 г. Последнее вручение: 2023 г. Официальный сайт: https://www.societyofauthors.org/somerset-maugham

Номинации

Художественная литература.
Поэзия.
Публицистика.
Все победители

июнь 2023 г. — победители

Художественная литература.
To Fill a Yellow House
Сасси Эни 0.0
Lyrical, witty, moving and timely, To Fill a Yellow House is a story of community, friendship and the power of creativity and connection.

When Kwasi's family moves abruptly from one side of London to the other, Kwasi is both excited by the change--the new house is so big--and unsettled by his new school and the pressures placed upon him by his parents and many aunties. One place Kwasi finds refuge and inspiration is the Chest of Small Wonders, an eclectic and run-down charity shop on the high street.

Rupert has run the Chest for decades, but since his wife's death several years before, he has struggled to keep their dreams for the shop alive. These days, fewer people shop second-hand, the Chest has become a depository for unwanted possessions, and Rupert is indulging more and more in herbal and perhaps-not-so-legal teas.

As Kwasi spends time in the Chest, an unexpected friendship develops between man and boy, a relationship that gives each a new sense of belonging. But the community and high street are changing, and when local politics threaten to engulf the Chest, both Kwasi and Rupert must decide who their allies are and where their futures lie.

To Fill a Yellow House is as vibrant and surprising as the city it is set in and marks the arrival of a bright and bold new talent.
Купить эту книгу
Художественная литература.
We Move
Гурнаик Джохал 0.0
Here, beneath the planes circling Heathrow, various lives connect. Priti speaks English and her nani Punjabi. Without Priti's mum around they struggle to make a shared language. Not far away, Chetan and Aanshi's relationship shifts when a woman leaves her car in their drive but never returns to collect it. Gujan's baba steps out of his flat above the chicken shop for the first time in years to take his grandson on a bicycle tour of the old and changed neighbourhood. And returning home after dropping out of university, Lata grapples with a secret about her estranged family friend, now a chart-topping rapper in a crisis of confidence.

Mapping an area of West London, these stories chart a wider narrative about the movement of multiple generations of immigrants. In acts of startling imagination, Gurnaik Johal's debut brings together the past and the present, the local and the global, to show the surprising ways we come together.
Купить эту книгу
Художественная литература.
An Olive Grove in Ends
Мозес Маккензи 0.0
Sayon Hughes longs to escape the volatile Bris­tol neighborhood known as Ends, the tight-knit but sometimes lawless world in which he was raised, and forge a better life with Shona, the girl he’s loved since grade school. With few paths out, he is drawn into dealing drugs along­side his cousin, the unpredictable but fiercely loyal Cuba. Sayon is on the cusp of making a clean break when an altercation with a rival dealer turns deadly and an expected witness threatens blackmail, upending his plans.

Sayon’s loyalties are torn. If Shona learns the secret of his crime, he will lose her forever. But if he doesn’t escape Ends now, he may never get another chance. Is it possible to break free of the bookies’ tickets, burnt spoons, and crook­ed solutions, and still keep the love of his life?

Rippling with authenticity and power, Mo­ses McKenzie’s dazzling debut brings to life a vi­brant and teeming world we have read too little about. In its sheer lyrical power, An Olive Grove in Ends recalls the work of James Baldwin and marks the arrival of an exciting and formidable new voice.
Купить эту книгу
Поэзия.
Imperium
Джей Гао 0.0
By reimagining episodes from Homer's Odyssey, Jay Gao's highly anticipated debut collection, Imperium, introduces an innovative talent whose work cuts across poetic traditions, traversing mythic cartographies and imperial formations. Exploring forms of absolute and intimate power, Imperium is an imaginative meditation on how the past lives on in the present by way of, and beyond, a global poetics of diaspora.

'Nuanced, challenging, sometimes hilarious, often anguished, this impressive reimagining of The Odyssey makes for an unforgettable road trip; Gao's Odysseus is a nervy and compelling traveller, a sort of non-hero, itinerant and always somewhat lost. Waylaid with Gao in hotel bars and tour buses, we are estranged, sensitized as we go to the dislocations and non-belonging of children of the world's diasporas, and also to the structures of appropriation and exploitation embedded in travel. We are all conditioned and implicated; but perhaps this acute and attentive Odysseus is exactly who we need to help us listen to the buried histories of Imperialism, to "wait a little differently, mourn a / little more".'
Fiona Benson

'These poems reject the heroism of the legible "I". If a central figure emerges it might be that of the Anti-Translator, not there to disclose personal information but to reveal the bareness of our "corpse-lives". Jay Gao's Imperium marks a new chapter in British poetry, bringing to bear a new complexity, richness of thought and influence.'
Will Harris
Купить эту книгу
Публицистика.
None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary
Трэвис Алабанза 0.0
‘When you are someone that falls outside of categories in so many ways, a lot of things are said to you. And I have had a lot of things said to me.’

In None of the Above, Travis Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them about their gender identity. These phrases have stayed with them over the years. Some are deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or offensive, some celebratory; sentences that have impacted them for better and for worse; sentences that speak to the broader issues raised by a world that insists that gender must be a binary.

Through these seven phrases, which include some of their most transformative experiences as a Black, mixed race, non binary person, Travis Alabanza turns a mirror back on society, giving us reason to question the very framework in which we live and the ways we treat each other.
Купить эту книгу
Публицистика.
Birdgirl
Мья-Роуз Крейг 0.0
Discover a powerful, evocative and urgent new young voice in nature writing.
'Birdwatching has never felt like a hobby, or a pastime I can pick up and put down, but a thread running through the pattern of my life.'
Meet Mya-Rose - otherwise known as 'Birdgirl'. Birder, environmentalist, diversity activist. To date she has seen over five thousand different types of bird: half the world's species.
Every single bird a treasure. Each sighting a small step in her family journey - a collective moment of joy and stillness. And each helping her to find her voice.
Since she was young, she has visited every continent to pursue her passion, seeing first-hand the inequality and reckless destruction we are inflicting on our fragile planet. And the simple, mindful act of looking for birds has made her ever-more determined to campaign for all our survival.
This is her story; a journey defined by her love for these extraordinary creatures. Because large or small, brown, patterned or jewelled, there is something about birds that makes us, even for just moments at a time, lift our eyes away from our lives and up to the skies.
Birdgirl is the perfect read for fans of H is for Hawk, Diary of a Young Naturalist, and any young or aspiring environmentalists.
Купить эту книгу
Показать всех победителей

Интересные факты

Любопытно, что в истории премии было два случая, когда она доставалась отцу и сыну. В 1955 году награду выиграл Кингсли Эмис, а в 1974 г. – его сын, Мартин Эмис. Ситуация повторилась, когда в 1950 году , премию получил Найджел Нил, а в 1988 г. приза удостоился его сын – Мэтью.

Кураторы