Philip Pullman

In 2017 Philip Pullman returned to the world of Lyra Belacqua, 22 years after readers were first introduced to the characters and ideas that coursed though the hugely influential trilogy His Dark Materials.

Presented as an "equel" to the earlier titles, La Belle Sauvage (David Fickling Books/Penguin Random House Children’s) was the event book of the year; it gave Pullman his first ever Official UK Top 50 number one, with 71,568 copies sold in its first part-week on sale. It stayed in the top five of the hardback chart for 11 weeks—from publication right through to the end of the year—and was the 10th-bestselling book of 2017. It was the fastest-selling children’s audiobook ever, and PRH Children’s fastest-selling e-book. It won the Waterstones Book of the Year—the first children’s title to do so—and in total the hardback edition sold 305,000 copies in 2017, generating £3.8m.

It also cemented Pullman’s reputation as a writer who spoke to both adults and children, a writer who could please critics and book-buyers, with a book that could sell in outlets across the trade.

To date, Pullman has published 33 books. The His Dark Materials trilogy has been honoured by several prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children’s Book Award, and (for The Amber Spyglass) the Whitbread Book of the Year Award—the first time in the history of the prize that it was given to a children’s book. Pullman has received numerous other awards, including the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children’s literature, the Astrid Lindgren Award and a CBE.

Pullman is now among the top 10 all-time bestselling children’s authors in the UK, and sales of all his books amounted to 526,000 copies, with a value of £5.7m through Nielsen UK Bookscan, in 2017. His life sales now stand at 6.8 million copies, for a value of £47.7m.

But it is also through his commitment to authors and campaigning that makes him the standout choice for this award: he has served as president of the Society of Authors since 2013, taking vocal positions on the importance of paying authors fairly, the value of independent bookshops and literacy. As Waterstones’ managing director James Daunt has said: "The importance of Philip Pullman to the cause of reading cannot be overstated."