Zerán and Chavez shortlisted for the £20k Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award

Novelists Alia Trabucco Zerán and Julian Herbert Chavez are among the six-strong shortlist for the £20,000 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award.

Run by the British Library and Hay Festival, the award is given annually to two writers in the early stages of a new book relating to the Americas. The winners will each hold the award for one year from 1st January and receive the cash prize in four quarterly grants, as well as a residency at the British Library.

The residency will include unique access to the expertise of the library’s curatorial staff. Winners will get the chance to appear at future Hay Festival editions with their published work, and will be given the opportunity to work with the Eccles Centre to develop and facilitate activities and events related to their research at the British Library.

Chavez is on the list for Carmenaida, which is set over the 20th century and explores "themes of aspiration and status". Zerán, who was a finalist for the International Booker Prize for Sophie Hughes’ translation of her novel The Remainder (Coffee House Press), is shortlisted for Impudence (Descado), hailed as a "radical mix of fiction, autobiography and essay". 

They are vying for the award alongside art critic Isobel Harbison, on the list for Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, which "offers the true story of women, power and light". Poet Hannah Lowe is also in the running for the "lyrical, hybrid memoir" Moy: In Search of Nelsa Lowe.

Novelist Rodrigo Hasbún is shortlisted for New Germania, a book about "colonial legacies, themes of migration and the ways that individual and community destiny are entwined". Historian Sarah M S Pearsall completes the list for Freedom Round the Globe, which tells the story of the American Revolution from a "global perspective".

The award is judged by a panel comprising Eccles Fisher Associates director Catherine Eccles, Hay Festival international director Cristina Fuentes La Roche, head of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library Polly Russell and Lucy Rowlands, interim lead curator for American Collections at the British Library.

Russell said: “We are very happy with the 2024 Writer’s Award shortlisted projects. Each one explores an unexpected aspect of the Americas through the British Library’s collections and if we could award them all with the final prize we definitely would.”

Roche added: “The shortlist for this year’s Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award offers breadth, depth and endless inspiration. We are proud of continued growth of the Award as it continues to support writers in illuminating new facets of the Americas. Any one of these would make a worthy winner and we look forward to supporting and sharing their work for many years to come.”

The winners will be announced at an awards reception at the British Library on Wednesday 29th November. The 2023 winners were writers Ayanna Lloyd Banwo and Jarred McGinnis.