Zaidi and Souhami win 2021 Polari Prizes

Criminal barrister Mohsin Zaidi and biographer Diana Souhami been announced the winners of the 2021 Polari Prizes. 

Zaidi becomes the 11th winner of the Polari First Book Prize for his memoir A Dutiful Boy (Square Peg), which charts his journey growing up in a devout Shia Muslim community within a poor pocket of east London.

Souhami scooped the overall Polari Prize for non-debut talent with her biography No Modernism Without Lesbians (Head of Zeus), about a singular group of women who fostered the birth of the Modernist movement.

The winners of the prizes—the UK’s only awards celebrating literature that explores the LGBTQ+ experience—were announced in a ceremony held at the Southbank Centre at the London Literature Festival on 30th October.

Organisers described Zaidi’s memoir, which charted his life from childhood to being a criminal barrister, as “a moving and ultimately uplifting account of his experiences as a young boy in denial about his sexuality”. They said: “Becoming the first person from his school to attend Oxford University, new experiences and encounters lead him on a path to self discovery, opening the door to live every part of his identity."

Judge Rachel Holmes said of the book: “In these days of deliberately-stoked culture wars Mohsin Zaidi deftly engages us with the harsh, hilarious and inherently human realities of multiple identity. With painful honesty, he shows how no community of class, race, faith or queerness is immune from suspicion and occasional hatred of otherness, nor mercifully from love, laughter and acceptance.”   

No Modernism Without Lesbians was described by organisers  as “a bold, fresh new look at the early 20th-century cultural canon through the lens of four lesbians: Sylvia Beach, Bryher, Natalie Barney and Gertrude Stein... a trailblazing publisher, a patron of artists, a society hostess and a groundbreaking writer, their lives and work became central to fostering the Modernist movement in interwar Paris”.

Judge and c.e.o. of the National Centre for Writing, Chris Gribble, described the book as “richly researched, entertaining and hugely enjoyable, offering “insight into the lives, passions and legacies of a group of outstanding women who together helped change the course of their culture”. He added:  “Souhami [pictured, right] is a brilliant guide and this book a celebration, corrective and fillip all in one.”  

Judges for the First Book Prize also included author Amrou Al-Kadhi, who won in 2020 for Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from Shame to Pride and Everything in Between (4th Estate), and writer Keith Jarrett. The winner receives a cheque for £1,000 from prize sponsor FMcM Associates.  

Judges for the overall Polari Prize are author Kate Davies, who won last year’s award for her novel In at the Deep End (Borough Press), alongside journalist Suzi Feay and writer V G Lee. The winner receives a cheque for £2,000 from prize sponsor D H H Literary Agency.  

Both prize panels are chaired by the prizes' founder, journalist and author Paul Burston.