Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean win The Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing

Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean have won the £500 Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing with Abolition Revolution (Pluto Press). 

The publisher described the book as “a guide to abolitionist politics in Britain, drawing out rich histories of resistance from rebellion in the colonies to grassroots responses to carceral systems today”. The authors argue that abolition is key to reconceptualising revolution for modern times. 

Mairi Oliver, chair of judges, said: “Abolition Revolution subverts both genre and conventional thinking on prisons and the abilities of people in community to care for one another. While it is a book of political thought, Day and McBean have overturned the genre by writing an original blend of well-researched arguments, manifesto-like demands for change and personal stories and interviews. It is a refreshingly brave book, clear in its objectives and determination to bring different communities of people and activists together, and to galvanise the reader to create change, not as one person, but as part of a collective.” 

The Bread & Roses Award, presented by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers, is a book award dedicated to “lifting up and celebrating radical left-wing political non-fiction". It was established by London’s Housmans in 2012, and has since been run in collaboration with Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham and then Lighthouse — Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop. Past winners of the award include Ellen Clifford, Johny Pitts, Reni Eddo-Lodge and, in its very first year, David Graeber.