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Brooker wins Fitzcarraldo Editions Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize
Marianne Brooker has won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize for her essay proposal “Intervals”, which explores choice, interdependence and end-of-life care.
The annual competition for unpublished writers awards £3,000 to the writer of the best proposal of a book-length essay, by a writer resident in the UK and Ireland who has yet to secure a publishing deal. In addition to the prize money, in the form of an advance against publication with Fitzcarraldo Editions, the winner has the opportunity to spend up to two months in residency at the Mahler & LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy, during the summer of 2022, to work on their book. The book will then be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
“If an intervention describes the act of stepping in – to save a life or hasten a death – an interval describes the intimate and collective work of stepping back, creating space and marking time,” the publisher’s analysis said. “Blending memoir, polemic and feminist philosophy in order to transform grief into a resource for politics, ‘Intervals’ explores the space between proximity and complicity, charting the author’s care for her mother as she refused food and water at the end of her life, determined to end her suffering from primary progressive multiple sclerosis. ‘Intervals’ turns our attention to a shared history of creativity, solidarity and fear, and a demand for a fairer, safer future.”
Brooker is a writer based in Bristol, where she works in community-led local media. She was formerly co-editor of the Ecologist, a climate justice news website.She read for a BA and MPhil in English at the University of Cambridge, and holds a PhD in English Literature from Birkbeck, which she worked on while caring for her mother.
“I’m so happy to have won the prize, and with it the time and space to write,” she said. “It will be an honour to work on ‘Intervals’ with the team at Fitzcarraldo Editions, who’ve helped craft some of my favourite books. A huge thank you to them and to the judges.”
The other shortlisted authors, chosen from 124 entries, are Chloe Evans for “Elastic Bands”, Holly Isard with “Molecular Visions”, Benoit Loîseau for “Fast”, Oliver Shamlou for “Shabaneh” and Stephanie Y Tam with “Radio Silence”.
Publisher Jacques Testard added: “We are thrilled to welcome Marianne Brooker to Fitzcarraldo Editions. Her proposal for ‘Intervals’ stood out in a very competitive field, testament once again to the vitality of the essay form in Britain and Ireland.”
The 2022 Fitzcarraldo Editions/Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize was judged by Testard, Joanna Biggs, Brian Dillon, Joanna Kavenna and Max Porter.
The prize was won last year by Heather McCalden for “The Observable Universe”.
