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Basciano, Ali and Dunn win 2023 RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards worth £17.5k
Oliver Basciano, Taj Ali and Katherine Dunn have won the 2023 RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards with a collective prize pot of £17,500.
The prizes support writers with their first commissioned works of non-fiction with three awards – one of £10,000, one of £5,000 and one of £2,500.
This year’s awards were judged by writers Leila Aboulela, Fiona St Aubyn and Tom Burgis.
Journalist and critic Basciano won £10,000 for his book, Outcast: A History of Us Through Leprosy (Faber), dubbed by organisers as “an important book about social connectivity and resilience”, exploring the 4,000 year-old history of leprosy.
Oliver said: “The themes of the book are big, ambitious ones, but are told through the voices of those affected, globally, past and present. I am proud that this award will help their stories be heard."
Aboulela said: “Oliver Basciano’s Outcast is a sophisticated and wide-reaching project which delves into the global history of leprosy and its present-day relevance. Basciano uncovers – with astute understanding and compassion – how state repression of patients came to be used as a model for racial and settler colonialism segregation.
“The result is a fascinating, stirring and rich testimony of humanity’s fear of the unclean and the other: those pushed away and those who fight back against stigma and oppression.”
Ali, co-editor of Tribune Magazine, won £5,000 for Come What May, We’re Here to Stay: A Story of South Asian Resistance (Manchester University Press) which documents South Asian political activism throughout the 20th Century, exploring the anti-racist resistance and how South Asians fought to defend their rights.
Ali said: "It’s an honour to win this award. South Asians in Britain have a rich tradition of political activism. Much of this is oral history and hasn’t been documented. I want to change that. The generous financial support will enable me to preserve a history that is at risk of being lost."
Burgis said: “Taj Ali’s book is that precious thing: the untold version of a story we think we know. In the hands of this young writer of talent and determination, it promises to be an illuminating read. And, as hatred marches again, an urgent one.”
Finally Dunn won £2,5000 for Right Here, Right Now: The Hidden History of How the Global Positioning System Shaped the Modern World (Mudlark). This book considers the Global Positioning System (GPS), the network of US government satellites that encircle the earth.
Dunn, a freelance journalist and the content editor of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, said: “Winning this award is a huge vote of confidence and I’m delighted and thankful to the RSL and the Giles St Aubyn Award. This is a reporting-heavy book, and the support will make much of that on-the-ground work possible.’”
St Aubyn described the book as “a compelling and eye-opening account” of the history of the GPS from the Second World War onwards. “Katherine Dunn turns the story behind this into a gripping page-turner, taking us from its everyday use to its pervasive and invisible connections throughout the world,” she said.
The winners were announced in a series of videos produced by illustrator and animator Liang-Hsin Huang, and can be viewed on the RSL’s YouTube Channel.
The Royal Society of Literature established the annual RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards in 2017 for first-time writers of non-fiction – in perpetuity – following a significant bequest from author and RSL fellow Giles St Aubyn.
