Six writers shortlisted for £20k Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award

Six writers have been shortlisted for the £20,000 Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award, which is given annually to two writers in the early stages of a new book relating to the Americas. 

The winners also receive a residency at the British Library, with unique access to the expertise of the library’s curatorial staff, the chance to appear at future Hay Festival editions with their published work, and the opportunity to work with the Eccles Centre to develop and facilitate activities and events related to their research at the British Library. 

The shortlist includes Guatemalan writer Eduardo Halfon Tenenbaum for In My Two Wars, which uses the story of a Jewish youth summer camp in Guatemala during the 1980s as a vehicle to explore the legacies of the Holocaust and Guatemalan internal armed conflict.  

Also nominated is Trinidadian novelist Ayanna Lloyd Banwo for Dark Eye Place, which tells the story of a family house, passed down to the daughter of each generation. Set in post-emancipation Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the novel explores women’s changing lives, family relationships, inheritance and ideas of belonging in the context of great social upheaval.   

British writer Jarred McGinnis is nominated for In the Mountain Weight. McGinnis mines his family’s history, from the American Civil War to the present day, to examine themes of masculinity, family and migration. The memoir will consider the myths we create about family and ourselves to tell the story of who we are or want to be.   

Also on the list is British-American writer Malachi McIntosh for A Revolutionary Consciousness, which describes the emergence of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM). Focusing on the movement’s three founders, John La Rose, Edward Kamau Brathwaite and Andrew Salkey, the book will document how CAM ignited a new consciousness and inspired Black artists in the decades to come.   

Irish-Canadian writer Joanna Pocock is chosen for Greyhound, which will explore the built environment and its ecological imprint on the natural world. Combining memoir, narrative account and history, Pocock will take the reader on a journey from Ontario, Canada, to Los Angeles, US, to ask questions about environmental breakdown, dislocation and freedom of mobility in the present.   

Rounding off the list is Colombian writer Velia Vidal Romero for Affluents, which takes inspiration from Romero’s encounters with the Latin-American collections found in the British Museum, Pit Williams Museum and the British Library. Romero’s non-fiction book assesses the collections amassed in the 1960s in the Colombian El-Choco region by British anthropologists Brian Moser and Donald Tyler to understand how outsiders have narrated and understood her ancestors and the place she was born and lives.  

The award is judged by a panel comprising Eccles Fisher Associates director Catherine Eccles, Hay Festival international director Cristina Fuentes La Roche, the British Library’s head of America, Europe and Oceana Mercedes Aguirre, historian Colin Grant, and head of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library Polly Russell.

La Roche said: “With more submissions than ever before, this year’s judging for the Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award was inspiring and challenging. We are incredibly proud of this shortlist. Any one of these would make a worthy winner of the 2023 award. We look forward to announcing the winners next month and for supporting and sharing their work in illuminating the Americas for many years to come.”  

The winners will be announced at an awards reception at the British Library on 23rd November. The 2022 winners were the novelist Javier Montes and historian Philip Clark.