English PEN announced today, Wednesday 27 November 2024, that Avi Shlaim has been awarded the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2024. The prize, endowed by former English PEN member Marjorie Hessell-Tiltman’s bequest, celebrates the best non-fiction on any historical subject. The winner was announced at a ceremony held at the October Gallery in London.
This year’s judging panel for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize is chaired by writer and editor Sharmilla Beezmohun. She is joined by Professor Clare Anderson and Dr Venetia Porter.
Chair of the judging panel, Sharmilla Beezmohun, said: ‘A powerful and moving personal story providing a stunning new window on present-day politics. This tour-de-force of meticulous evidence-gathering and historical research, combined with elegant and evocative writing, is a page-turner which will live long in the minds of anyone who reads it.’
Clare Anderson said: ‘I was captivated by this book, a moving account of lives in a complex world. This is essential reading in our global present.’
Venetia Porter said: ‘This poignant and important book interweaves the author’s own history with that of the final decades of the Jewish community in Iraq. It provides a telling perspective on the violent and often bewildering politics of identity associated with the foundation of the state of Israel. An essential book for our times.’
Daniel Gorman, Director, English PEN, said: ‘We are honoured to award this year’s PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize to Avi Shlaim for Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew. His incisive and deeply moving memoir masterfully intertwines personal and political histories, offering timely reflections that challenge us to reconsider identity, belonging, and the ties that shape us.’
Professor Avi Shlaim, FBA, is an Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (1988); War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History (1995); The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000, updated edition 2014); Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace (2007); Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations (2009); and Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab-Jew (2023).
The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize of £2,000 is awarded annually for a non-fiction book of specifically historical content. Entrants are to be books of high literary merit – that is, not primarily written for the academic market – and can cover all historical periods.
Marjorie Hessell-Tiltman was a member of PEN during the 1960s and 1970s. On her death in 1999 she bequeathed £100,000 to the PEN Literary Foundation to found a prize in her name.
The 2024 PEN Hessell-Tiltman shortlist is:
On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Caroline Dodds Pennock (W&N)
Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984–85 by Robert Gildea (Yale University Press)
Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949–1990 by Katja Hoyer (Allen Lane)
Sea of Troubles: The European Conquest of the Islamic Mediterranean and the Origins of the First World War by Ian Rutledge (Saqi Books)
Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew by Avi Shlaim (Oneworld)
The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios (Virago)