Barbellion Prize for ill or disabled writers launched

The Barbellion Prize, a new award for writers whose work “effectively communicates the experience of chronic illness and/or disability”, is being launched.

Self-published author Jake Goldsmith, who suffers with cystic fibrosis and other conditions, said he decided to found the competition while writing his own memoir.

He named it after English writer W N P Barbellion, a pseudonym for Bruce Cummings, whose diary dealt extensively with his experience of multiple sclerosis.

Goldsmith told The Bookseller: “I wanted to give a greater voice to illness in literature, as some of my favourite authors‚ÄìKafka, Camus, Katherine Mansfield, Barbellion‚Äìall dealt with illness implicitly or not in their works, and they formed a wider phenomenology of illness.

“This was something I wrote about in my memoir, Neither Weak Nor Obtuse, about my life with illness and how it has influenced my actions and my ideas.”

The prize is intended for people with chronic, life-long conditions although non-fiction, fiction and poetry are all eligible, published or self-published.

Submissions are now open for the inaugural prize, with a closing date of 31st October 2020. The award winner will receive £600 on 21st February 2021.