PEN/Ackerley Prize - Archive

This prize was first awarded in 1982. When Joe Randolph Ackerley (1896 - 1967), author and long-time literary editor of The Listener magazine, died, his sister Nancy endowed a literary prize in his memory. Ackerley's posthumous royalties continue to provide capital for this award.

 

Past winners include:

 

2006

  

The twenty-fifth PEN/Ackerley Prize for literary autobiography was presented on Thursday July 13 2006 at the PEN Summer Party to Alan Bennett for his memoir, Untold Stories, which presents the very best of Bennett's writing over the last decade, much of it deeply personal. In his acceptance speech, Bennett said: 'I am very honoured to receive the award, particularly as it comes from fellow practitioners and from such a distinguished organization. While not wishing to mention other literary awards, I must say that the British Book Awards are somewhat nylon, if not crinoline, whereas this award is undoubtedly tweed. I was, when Ackerley died, just starting my literary career. I wonder, if he had been able to write as freely about his life as one can now, whether he would have written the books he did. Maybe his sister had that in the back of her mind when she set up the prize. Anyway, I am very, very grateful. Thank you very much indeed.'

 

The other short-listed authors in 2006 were: 

 

NINA BAWDEN, Dear Austen (Virago)

On May 10 2002 Nina Bawden and her husband Austen Kark boarded the 12:45 from Kings Cross. A few minutes later the train derailed. Seven people were killed and 76 badly hurt. Nina Bawden was gravely injured and Austen was killed instantly. In this powerful and poignant letter to her husband, Nina Bawden tries to make sense of it all.  

 

XANDRA BINGLEY, Bertie, May and Mrs Fish (Harper Perennial)

Xandra Bingley's account of her childhood on a Cotswold farm, set against the backdrop of the Second World War and its aftermath. With its eccentric cast of characters, this book captures both the essence of a country childhood and the remarkable courage and resilience displayed by ordinary people during the war. 

 
NEIL CROSS, Heartland (Scribner)
When he was five, Neil's mother walked out of the family home. Two years later she returned with a new man; Derek Cross. His new stepfather prided himself on being an exemplary parent: kind, patient, never too tired to read him stories. Neil loved him. Yet underneath lurked another Derek Cross - a monster, conman, adulterer, liar, racist and cold-hearted manipulator.

RICHARD MABEY, Nature Cure (Chatto & Windus)

In the last year of the old millennium, Richard Mabey fell into a severe depression. He could neither work nor play. His money ran out. Worst of all, the natural world - which since childhood had been a source of joy and inspiration for him - became meaningless. Then, cared for by friends, he gradually recovered. He fell in love. Out of necessity as much as choice he moved to East Anglia. And he started to write again.

 

ANNA SWAN, Statues without Shadows (Sceptre)

Anna Swan's gripping family memoir tells the tragic story of her talented parents with wit, candour and delicacy. Poorly suited to one another, they were even less-well suited to the task of raising a child and Swan unfolds the drama of their lives and death with a novelistic flair.  

 

Francis King, Chair of the Judges, said:

'In recent years books about unhappy childhoods have preponderated. Two such made the short-list this year - Neil Cross's Heartland and Anna Swan's Statues Without Shadows. What is remarkable about each is that, despite all the childhood suffering endured by the author, the tone is never the usual one of blaming or self-pity. Richard Mabey's Nature Cure, an account of how his observations of the natural world helped to keep him afloat during a nervous breakdown, struck the judges as the best written of the books; Alan Bennett's generously bulging portmanteau Untold Story as the most entertaining. In Dear Austen Nina Bawden writes of the death of her husband in a horrific railway accident with passion and grace. Xandra Bingley's Bertie, May and Mrs Fish is a delightful evocation of a wartime childhood.'

   

 

2005

 

JONATHAN GATHORNE-HARDY was awarded the prize for Half An Arch (Timewell Press). Gathorne-Hardy is the author of numerous books, including five novels, two volumes of short stories, six works of non-fiction and eleven children's books. His biography of Alfred C. Kinsey is the basis of the film 'Kinsey' with Liam Neeson in the title role - it was reviewed in the Daily Express in March 2005 as being "meticulous, energetic, critical where necessary, never coy, with some brilliant swerves of presentation and a delicious line in low key humour. Sex of course is endlessly gripping, but Gathorne-Hardy gives a sense of lifting the subject out of the mean and shabby into a wonderful humane light, paralleling precisely what Kinsey himself did."

 

2005 Shortlist

 

MICHAEL BLAKEMORE - Arguments With England - Faber and Faber

 

JENNIE ERDAL - Ghosting - Canongate Books

 

SIMON GRAY - The Smoking Diaries - Granta Publishing

 

TIM JEAL - Swimming With My Father - Faber and Faber

 

 

2004

 

BRYAN MAGEE was awarded the J.R. Ackerley price for Clouds of Glory - A Hoxton Childhood. Presenting the award, Francis King, Chair of the panel of judges, said:

 

 

The standard was so unusually high that at least a dozen books would have been considered eligible for the short list in leaner years. More than one short-listed book had one enthusiastic advocate and one determined objector. Fortunately, there was general agreement that Bryan Magee's childhood memoir of life in the then impoverished Hoxton, Clouds of Glory, was a work of unassailable merit.

 

Receiving the J R Ackerley Award for Autobiography, Bryan Magee responded: This Prize is a great boost, and I'm grateful to the judges. It's the first prize I've won, though I have had books shortlisted before. I hope it'll bring me new readers, not just for this book but also for the others.

 

Byran Magee received £1000 and a silver S.T. Dupont pen.

 

 

2004 Shortlist

 

JOHN BOORMAN - Adventures of a Suburban Boy - Faber

 

VIRGINIA IRONSIDE - Janey and Me: Growing up with my Mother - 4th Estate

 

BRYAN MAGEE - Clouds of Glory: A Hoxton Childhood - Jonathan Cape

 

HILARY MANTEL - Giving up the Ghost: A Memoir - 4th Estate

 

PHILIP NORMAN - Babycham Night: A Boyhood At The End Of The Pier - Macmillan

 

 

 

2003

 

JENNY DISKI was the winner of the J.R.Ackerley Prize for Autobiography 2003 for Stranger on a Train (Time Warner/Virago). The prize was presented at International Writers' Day 2003 on Saturday 7th June at Senate House, University of London by Peter Parker, member of the panel of judges. Her award was accepted on her behalf by Lennie Goodings.

Travelling by rail around the edge of the United States, Jenny Diski also made journeys into her own past in this funny, poignant and beautifully written book. Unusually, Diski travels 'in order to keep still (….) and move through empty spaces', and the result is, amongst other things, a profound and unsettling account of alienation.

I am very pleased that 'Stranger on a Train' was enjoyed by people I admire as much as Francis King, Michael Holroyd, Colin Spencer and Peter Parker. And I am glad also to find myself in the company of the excellent other writers on the shortlist, Eric Hobsbawm, Diana Athill, Mark Sanderson and Matt Seaton. Thank you; thank you very much.

 

Our congratulations go to Jenny Diski on her considerable achievement.

 

 

2003 Shortlist

 

DIANA ATHILL - Yesterday Morning - Granta Books

 

JENNY DISKI - Stranger on a Train - Time Warner/Virago

 

ERIC HOBSBAWM - Interesting Times - Penguin/Allen Lane

 

MARK SANDERSON - Wrong Rooms - Simon & Schuster/Scribner

 

MATT SEATON - The Escape Artist - Harper-Collins/Fourth Estate

 

2002

 

Michael Foss won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography - £1000 plus a silver Dupont Pen - for Out of India: a Raj Childhood (Michael O'Mara).

 

Presenting the award, Francis King, Chair of the Panel of Judges, said: "The first chapter of Michael Foss' Out of India describes, with shattering power, the wartime torpedoing of a liner on its way to India from England. A tiny boy, who later grew up to be Michael Foss, survived the ordeal, eventually to arrive in India in the twilight of the Raj. It is astonishing that a work of such rare quality should have received virtually no reviews." 

 

Said Foss: "It is possibly anomalous, perhaps even shameful, for a writer of over 60 to receive a prize. Resigning myself to the voice of fate, and understanding that all - age and gilded youth - stand equal at the threshold of the hall of letters, I gratefully accept."

 

2001 - Lorna Sage, Bad Blood

 

2000 - Mark Frankland, Child of My Time

 

1999 - Margaret Forster, Precious Lives

 

1998 - Kathryn Fitzherbert, True to Both Myselves

 

1997 - Tim Lott, The Scent of Dried Roses

 

1996 - Eric Lomax, The Railway Man

 

1995 - Paul Vaughan, Something in Linoleum

 

1994 - Blake Morrison, When Did You Last See

            Your Father?

 

1993 - Barry Humphries, More, Please

 

1992 - John Osborne, Almost a Gentleman

 

1991 - Paul Binding, St Martin's Ride

 

1990 - Germaine Greer, Daddy We Hardly Knew

            You

 

1989 - John Healy, The Grass Arena

 

1988 - Anthony Burgess, Little Wilson & Big God

 

1987 - Diana Athill, After the Funeral

 

1986 - Dan Jacobson, Time and Time Again

 

1985 - Angelica Garnett, Deceived with Kindness

 

1984 - Richard Cobb, Still Life

 

1983 - Kathleen Dayus, Her People      Joint

            Ted Walker, High Path            winners

 

1982 - Edward Blishen, Shaky Relations