Kenrick and de Courcy honoured at 2023 Tony Lothian Prize

The University of East Anglia academic Andrew Kenrick has won the £2,000 Tony Lothian Prize prize for a biography of Berber Prince Juba II while 96-year-old Anne de Courcy received a Special Contribution award. 

Kenrick’s Juba From Roman Slave to African King was deemed as the best proposal by a first-time biographer by judges. He won the £2,000 prize at the Biographers’ Club Christmas Party on Monday (11th December), held at The Albany in London. 

An associate tutor in the faculty of arts and humanities at the University of East Anglia, Kenrick has a PhD in life writing, with a thesis entitled "African Kings, Roman Rule: The Life of Juba II and Cleopatra Selene of Mauretania".

The judges said Kenrick’s research (now being edited for a general audience) "throws light on a corner of the ancient African-Roman world hitherto and regrettably shrouded in shadow". They added "that the story was marvellous and that Ancient Rome is very much of the moment".

Juba was raised by Octavian, later known as Emperor Augustus, and given the Kingdom of Mauretania (modern-day Morocco and Algeria) to rule in the name of Rome and “did this with a liberal and civilising hand" while being "a famed antiquarian, travel writer and explorer", according to the judges. 

Also shortlisted were Victoria Baena for A Sentimental Education - Amélie Bosquet, Gustave Flaubert, and the Writer’s Vocation in Nineteenth-Century France, Stephanie Genty for Bitter Strength - The Life and Work of Marilyn French, Feminist, Sue Laurence for Ada Chesterton - Fleet Street Bohemian and Adventurer, Andrew Moscrop for Upriver, after Fred: A Thames Journey and Matthew Zipf for Renata Adler – At the Radical Middle. 

The Biography club gave its Special Contribution to Biography award to long-time writer de Courcy. Jane Ridley, chair of the club, revealed her admiration for how de Courcy, also a journalist, could also have produced 11 biographies. She cited in particular the 96-year-old’s "ground-breaking" life of Lord Snowdon, and her support for aspiring as well as established biographers. 

The judging panel featured journalists Lindsay Duguid and Catharine Morris and former Jonathan Cape publisher Dan Franklin.

Recent winners have included Francesca Wade (Square Haunting, Faber) and Sarah Watling (Noble Savages, Cape) while the 2022 winner was Catherine Haig, for An Unfinished Life: Lady Gwendolen Cecil.