Parkin wins the Wingate Literary Prize

Simon Parkin has been announced as the winner of this year’s Wingate Literary Prize for his book The Island of Extraordinary Captives (Sceptre).

Now in its 46th year, the annual £4,000 prize is awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader. Previous winners include Amos Oz, Zadie Smith, Oliver Sacks, David Grossman and Nicole Krauss.

Parkin’s book – which was praised as “ambitious and accomplished” by the judges – draws on archive material, letters and diaries to explore the internment of German refugees in Britain during the Second World War. This is brought into focus through the experiences of one prisoner in particular, the aspiring artist Peter Fleischmann.

The Island of Extraordinary Captives was selected by a judging panel comprised of chair Dr Aviva Dautch, National Jewish Book Award-winner George Prochnik, journalist Sarah Shaffi and award winning author Julie Cohen.

Dr Aviva Dautch said: “All seven of the shortlisted books were exceptionally strong. The range of subjects and genres made choosing a winner very difficult, but we judges felt that The Island of Extraordinary Captives particularly fitted the criteria of the Wingate Prize to communicate lived Jewish experience to the general reader.

“Simon Parkin’s well-researched and beautifully written book is a testament to how the Jewish refugees interned by the British as ‘enemy aliens’ on the Isle of Man during the Second World War, ‘turned a prison into a university, a camp into a cultural centre’.”