Skip to content
  • Common Currency
  • Campaigns
    • PENWrites
    • Writers at Risk
    • Writers in Residence
    • Free speech in the UK
  • News
  • Events
  • Translation
    • PEN Translates
    • PEN Transmissions
    • International Translation Day
    • The World Bookshelf
      • Books
      • Authors
      • Translators
    • PEN Presents
      • Issues
      • Books
      • Apply to PEN Presents
  • Prizes
    • PEN Pinter Prize
    • PEN Ackerley Prize
    • PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize
  • Donate
  • Join
Home > Event > Arifa Akbar, Frances Stonor Saunders and Roy Watkins shortlisted for PEN Ackerley Prize 2022

Arifa Akbar, Frances Stonor Saunders and Roy Watkins shortlisted for PEN Ackerley Prize 2022

English PEN is pleased to announce the shortlist for the PEN Ackerley Prize 2022 for memoir and autobiography.

The shortlisted titles are:

Arifa Akbar, Consumed: A Sister’s Story (Sceptre)

Frances Stonor Saunders, The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border (Jonathan Cape)

Roy Watkins, Simple Annals: A Memoir of Early Childhood (CB Editions)

The winner of the prize, which celebrates its 40th year in 2022, will be announced at a special event featuring the shortlisted authors in conversation with the Chair of the judges, Peter Parker at The London Library (Thursday 14 July, in person and online) as part of the ongoing partnership between English PEN and The London Library.

The PEN Ackerley Prize was established in memory of Joe Randolph Ackerley (1896–1967), the author and long-time literary editor of The Listener magazine. The prize is awarded annually to a literary autobiography of outstanding merit, written by an author of British nationality, and published in the UK in the previous year.

The PEN Ackerley Prize is judged by biographer and historian Peter Parker (Chair), writer and editor Michael Caines, author Georgina Hammick, and writer and critic Claire Harman. The winner receives a cheque for £3,000.

Daniel Gorman, Director, English PEN, said:

‘Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors for this year’s PEN Ackerley Prize, and our deepest thanks to the panel of judges for bringing together such a strong and varied shortlist. The PEN Ackerley Prize aims to celebrate outstanding literary autobiography, and this shortlist highlights how much of the world in all its variance can be encapsulated within this aim.’

Peter Parker, Chair of the Judges, said:

‘This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the PEN Ackerley Prize, and the judges called in a bumper 34 autobiographies and memoirs published in 2021. Over a period of six or so months we whittled down these books to eight possible contenders for the prize. Then, during a long meeting on a hot June day, we produced this shortlist of three books that all deal with families but are markedly different in the approach their authors take to the art of memoir.’

Arifa Akbar’s Consumed (Sceptre) describes the author’s troubled relationship with her older sister, a talented and unusual artist who, having developed eating disorders and other mental health problems, died suddenly and unexpectedly of undiagnosed tuberculosis. From this central tragedy the book opens out to explore sibling relationships and the tubercular heroine in literature, painting, theatre and opera, and provides a superbly crafted and fearlessly frank account of family dynamics, cultural dislocation, and the complexities and shortcomings of medical practice.

Frances Stonor Saunders’ The Suitcase (Jonathan Cape) describes the author tracing her  father’s years of enforced youthful wanderings after fleeing Romania in 1940 before he eventually came to Britain. In doing so Stonor Saunders hopes better to understand a man with whom she had a complex relationship – so complex that she is fearful of opening the suitcase of papers he left behind at his death. Skilfully constructed and beautifully written, with a wholly unexpected but satisfying conclusion, the book combines history and memoir to create a haunting meditation upon family, identity, boundaries and belonging.

Roy Watkins’ Simple Annals (CB Editions) is an intensely visualised evocation of the author’s early childhood in Lancashire during the 1940s and ‘50s, a world he shared with family, friends and local people. Unusually for a memoir, it restricts itself to the author’s first eleven years, reaching back to his very earliest memories. Highly original in form, it is a kind of prose poem, and like memory itself, is made up of vivid fragments, bright flashes that illuminate a specific time and place and recreate the sheer oddness of ‘ordinary’ life as perceived by a small boy.

We congratulate the three authors and urge everyone to buy and read these stimulating and hugely enjoyable books.

14 Jul 2022

6:45 pm

The London Library

Standard ticket £5 / Members ticket £4 / Online £3
Book Tickets

Share

1PEN Ackerley Prize

Join our mailing list

Sign up to receive the latest English PEN news and events.

SIGN UP
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Partners
  • Outreach
  • Jobs
  • Contact us

With thanks to our Core Funders

©1921 - 2023

English PEN is a company limited by guarantee number 5747142 (England & Wales) and a registered charity, number 1125610.

We use cookies to help us improve your experience on our website. By closing this notification or interacting with the website you agree to our use of cookies. ACCEPT Find out more
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT