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PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2024 judges announced

English PEN is delighted to announce that writer and editor Sharmilla Beezmohun (Chair of Judges) will be joined by Professor Clare Anderson, and Dr Venetia Porter to judge this year’s PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize.

The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize is awarded annually for a non-fiction book of specifically historical content – that is, not primarily written for the academic market – and can cover all historical periods.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.

Last year’s PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize was awarded to Kojo Koram for Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire (John Murray Press).

The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2024 shortlist will be announced in November 2024.

Thursday 16th
May 2024

1PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize

Sharmilla Beezmohun has worked in publishing since 1994, following her studies in English and History (BA, Leeds) and Women's Studies (MA, York), as well as three years spent in Japan. In 2010 she co-founded Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions with Sarah Sanders, an arts organisation which highlights underrepresented voices. In 2021, she edited Not Quite Right for Us, an anthology celebrating ten years of Speaking Volumes. In 2010 Sharmilla’s first novel was published in translation in Spain; other writing has been published in various journals and translated into Finnish. Sharmilla is a Trustee the George Padmore Institute, an archive housing unique collections from pioneering Black British political and cultural organisations of the last seventy years. In 2019 she became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Clare Anderson is Professor of History at the University of Leicester, where she also directs the Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies. Clare’s research focuses on the history and legacies of empire, including in regard to incarceration and punitive migration. She is editor of the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, a Trustee of Royal Museums Greenwich, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Venetia Porter is former Senior Curator for Islamic and Contemporary Middle East art at the British Museum. She is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the British Museum and The Courtauld Institute of Art. Her research ranges from Yemeni history through Arabic inscriptions and amulets to contemporary art. Exhibitions include Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam (2012), and she was the lead curator for the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World, (opened 2018). Her most recent publication is Artists making books: poetry to politics (British Museum Press, 2023).