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Somerset Maugham Award

Annual British literary award

Summary

Annual British literary award

The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors. Set up by William Somerset Maugham in 1947 the awards enable young writers to enrich their work by gaining experience in foreign countries. The awards go to writers under the age of 35 with works published in the year before the award; the work can be either non-fiction, fiction or poetry.

Since 1964 multiple winners have usually been chosen in the same year. In 1975 and in 2012 the award was not given.

List of winners

1940s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	1947	1948	1949
	Innocents	Hogarth Press
	Journey to the Interior	Jonathan Cape
	Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica	John Lehmann

1950s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.	1950	1951	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959
	Tomato Cain & Other Stories	Collins
	Scamp	John Lehmann
	**	Longman
	Hear and Forgive	Gollancz
	Five Short Novels	Michael Joseph
	Lucky Jim	Gollancz
	**	Deutsch
	In the Castle of My Skin	Michael Joseph
	Preliminary Essays	Macmillan
	**	Faber and Faber

1960s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.	1960	1961	1962	1963	1964	1965	1966	1966	1967	1968	1969
	**	Faber and Faber
	Miguel Street	Deutsch
	**	Eyre & Spottiswoode
	Flight Into Camden	Longman
	Time of Arrival	Weidenfeld
	**	Gollancz
	Negatives	Jonathan Cape
	**	Collins
	**	Constable
	Trawl	Secker & Warburg
	**	Jonathan Cape
	At The Jerusalem	Jonathan Cape
	Death of a Naturalist	Faber and Faber
	Several Perceptions	Heinemann

1970s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.	1970	1971
	**	Hodder & Stoughton
	Monk Dawson	Secker & Warburg
	**	Longman
	Tussy Is Me	Weidenfeld
	I’m the King of the Castle	Hamish Hamilton
	Terry Street	Faber and Faber
	Fly Away Home	Hodder & Stoughton
	Play Things	Gollancz
	**	Macmillan
	Prudence Dictates	Hart-Davis
	**	Jonathan Cape
No Award	last=	title=Somerset Maugham Award	url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/v354	access-date=2023-02-10	website=AustLit: Discover Australian Stories	language=en}}
	**	Chatto & Windus
	First Love, Last Rites	Jonathan Cape
	Shelley: The Pursuit	Quartet Books
	**	Faber and Faber
	My Life Closed Twice	Secker & Warburg
	Jack & Jill	Duckworth
	Daughter of Jerusalem	Blond & Briggs

1980s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989
	**	Allen & Unwin
	Bomber Command	Michael Joseph
	Arcadia	Oxford University Press
	Metroland	Jonathan Cape
	Hearts of Gold	Allison & Busby
	**	Secker & Warburg
	**	Hamish Hamilton
	Lantern Lecture	Faber and Faber
	Keepers of the House	Jonathan Cape
	**	Hamish Hamilton
	**	Jonathan Cape
	**	Bloodaxe Books
	Dark Glasses	Chatto & Windus
	By the Fisheries	Jonathan Cape
	Her Living Image	Faber and Faber
	Family Myths and Legends	Andre Deutsch
	Frontiers	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
	Tongues of Flame	Heinemann
	**	Heinemann
	Isaac Campion	Julia MacRae
	**	Chatto & Windus
	**	Bloomsbury
	Selling Manhattan	Anvil
	Whore Banquets	Gollancz Heinemann
	Romantic Affinities	Bodley Head
	**	Chatto & Windus
	**	Faber and Faber

1990s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
	Our Grandmothers' Drums	Secker & Warburg
	**	Secker & Warburg
	**	Collins Harvill
	**	Macmillan
	Honour Thy Father	Secker & Warburg
	Four Bare Legs in a Bed	Heinemann
	But Beautiful	Jonathan Cape
	Lempriere’s Dictionary	S. Stevenson
	Householder	Chatto & Windus
	Jella	Gollancz
	Out of the Rain	Bloodaxe Books
	Bucket of Tongues	Secker & Warburg
	Other Lovers	Bloodaxe Books
	Looking for the Possible Dance	Secker & Warburg
	Crossing Place	HarperCollins
	Younghusband	HarperCollins
	**	Faber and Faber
	**	Bloodaxe Books
	**	Chatto & Windus
	Truffle Beds	Faber and Faber
	Morvern Callar	Vintage
	**	Flamingo
	Slattern	Chatto & Windus
	Kitchen Venom	Hamish Hamilton
	I May Be Some Time	Faber and Faber
	**	Picador, Macmillan
	This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own	Faber and Faber
	**	Fourth Estate
	Angry White Pyjamas	Indigo
	Once In a House On Fire	Picador, Macmillan
	**	Picador, Macmillan
	**	Faber and Faber
	Bring Home the Revolution	Fourth Estate

2000s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
	**	HarperCollins
	Affinity	Virago Press
	Leadville	Picador, Macmillan
	Pobby and Dingan	Jonathan Cape
	Black Earth City	Granta
	**	Abacus
	**	Picador, Macmillan
	**	Hamish Hamilton
	If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things	Bloomsbury
	Two Kinds of Silence	Manuscript Publishing
	Mountains of the Mind	Granta
	Daughters of Jerusalem	Picador, Macmillan
	Passing Under Heaven	Abacus
	**	Review
	Incendiary	Chatto & Windus
	Skirrid Hill	Seren Books
	On Beauty	Hamish Hamilton
	Running for the Hills	John Murray
	**	Harvill Secker
	**	Canongate Books
	On Purpose	Faber and Faber
	Joshua Spassky	Cape
	Miss Herbert (US title: The Delighted States)	Cape
	Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River	John Murray
	**	Cape
	Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography	Bloomsbury
	**	John Murray
	**	Harvill Secker
	Once Upon a Time in England	Canongate Books

2010s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Prize	Ref.	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
	What Price Liberty?	Faber and Faber	£2,000
	White is for Witching	Picador	£3,000
	Talk of the Town	Picador	£5,000
	**	Bloodaxe	£3,500
	Romantic Moderns	Thames and Hudson	£3,500
	In the Flesh	Chatto Poetry	£3,500
No award given
	**	Sceptre	£2,500
	**	Salt	£2,500
	**	Cape	£2,500
	Diving Belles	Bloomsbury	£2,500
	Orkney	Granta	£2,000
	Hunters in the Snow Glass Delusion	Cape	£4,000
	**	Simon & Schuster	£4,000
	How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette, the Stolen Diamonds and the Scandal that Shook the French Throne	John Murray	£2,500	last=Flood	first=Alison	date=2015-06-26	title=Betty Trask award goes to Ben Fergusson's 'grittily evocative' debut	language=en-GB	work=The Guardian	url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/26/betty-trask-award-ben-fergussons-debut-novel	access-date=2023-02-10	issn=0261-3077}}
	Black Country	Chatto & Windus	£2,500
	Lolito	Canongate Books	£2,500
	Eat My Heart Out	Serpent’s Tail	£2,500
	An Account Of The Decline Of The Great Auk, According To One Who Saw It	JM Originals	£2,500
	Mr & Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance	Chatto & Windus	£2,500
	Physical	Cape Poetry	£2,500
	We Don’t Know What We’re Doing	Faber and Faber	£2,500
	Happiness	Faber and Faber	£2,500
	**	Vintage	£5,000	last=	first=	title=2017 Somerset Maugham Award Winners	url=https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/2010s-somerset-maugham-awards/2017-somerset-maugham-award-winners/_/N-1z141wbZ8qnZ2q6w	access-date=2023-02-10	website=Barnes & Noble	language=en}}
	Sunshine	Penned in the Margins	£5,000
	Infinite Ground	Atlantic Books	£5,000
	Kumukanda	Chatto Poetry	£5,250
	Elmet	JM Originals	£5,250
	All the Prayers in the House	Bloodaxe	£5,250
	**	Penned in the Margins	£4,000
	**	Chatto & Windus	£4,000
	Shrines of Upper Austria	Carcanet	£4,000
	Mrs Gaskell and Me	Picador	£4,000

2020s

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Ref.	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
	Michael Tippett: The Biography	Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Orion
	Moder Dy	Birlinn/Polygon
	**	Dialogue Books/Little, Brown & Co.
	Unicorn	4th Estate
	Dark, Salt, Clear	Bloomsbury
	Ripe	Ignition Press
	**	Okapi Books
	**	Pan Macmillan/Picador
	Amnion	Granta, Granta Poetry	date=1 June 2022	title=Graphic novel wins at the 2022 Society of Authors’ Awards	url=https://societyofauthors.org/News/News/2022/June/2022-Society-of-Authors-winners	access-date=2022-06-06	website=Society of Authors}}
	Keeping the House	And Other Stories	date=2022-06-01	title=Tice Cin's KEEPING THE HOUSE wins a Somerset Maugham Award	url=https://www.watsonlittle.com/tice-cins-keeping-the-house-wins-a-somerset-maugham-award/	access-date=2023-02-10	website=Watson Little	language=en-US}}
	My Body Keeps Your Secrets	Indigo Press
	Open Water	Penguin Random House/Viking Press
	Overrun by Wild Boars	Flipped Eye Publishing
	None of the Above	Canongate	last=McDonald	first=Teddy	date=2023-06-29	title=‘A plethora of riches’ – announcing the winners of the 2023 Society of Authors’ Awards	url=https://www2.societyofauthors.org/2023/06/29/a-plethora-of-riches-announcing-the-winners-of-the-2023-society-of-authors-awards/	access-date=2023-06-30	website=The Society of Authors	language=en-GB}}
	To Fill a Yellow House	Phoenix Books
	Birdgirl	Penguin
	Imperium	Carcanet
	We Move	Profile
		Wildfire
	Anamesis		title=Somerset Maugham Awards	url=https://societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/somerset-maugham-awards/	access-date=2025-01-19	website=The Society of Authors	language=en-GB}}
	Bad Diaspora Poems
	Twilight Cities
	Wandering Souls
	Herc	HarperCollins/HQ Stories
Jo Hamya	The Hypocrite
Ashani Lewis	Winter Animals
Jason Okundaye	Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain
Charlotte Shevchenko Night	Food for the Dead

References

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