Dead Ink Books wins 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize for Williams' The Doloriad

The winner of the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses has been revealed as Dead Ink Books for The Doloriad by Missouri Williams. 

The other shortlistees included Pilot Press for My Dead Book by Nate Lippens and Rough Trade Books for I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel as well as Tenement Press which published Mueum by S J Fowler and Tilted Axis for Chinatown by Thuận translated by Nguyễn An Lý. 

The 10 longlisted presses each received £300 with each shortlisted publisher winning an extra £1,000. 

Prize founder Neil Griffiths said: “A terrifying act of the imagination. Missouri Williams is one of those rare writers who can work without limits, and take us to a place that is both unrecognisable and familiar. Which is to say she makes us acknowledge the darkness we know lies at the centre of ourselves. The best dystopian novels are not about time or place but what it is within that takes us there.”  

Author Lamorna Ash, who helped judge the award, said: “The assurance of its style alone would make The Doloriad a superlative novel. That such stylistic power is in service of a plot so strange, counter, original, its mood flashing between the tragic, comic and sublime in the most surprising sequencing, raises The Doloriad’s achievement to something astonishing. What is at stake in this novel is salvation, whether humanity might be worthy or capable of salvation once the known world is over. It matters that indie presses like Dead Ink exist in the publishing industry to support and champion debuts as audacious as this, and we want to celebrate them for that.”  

The Republic of Consciousness Prize was launched in 2016 by Griffiths to find the "best novel published by a small press".