Reading List · Literary Prizes
The Folio Prize was set up as an answer to the Booker, in the year the Booker judges praised novels that “zip along”. Its books are chosen by an academy of writers and critics, and since 2017 it has been open to any kind of writing: novels, stories, memoir, reportage and poetry, all on one list. Ten winners from 2014 to 2024, from George Saunders to a novel in verse by Liz Berry. In 2023 it became The Writers’ Prize.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 winners, 2014 to 2024 · Any form of writing · All literary prizes · Last reviewed 22 September 2026
Click a title to read about that book further down ↓
Rathbones stopped sponsoring the prize after 2023, and in November 2023 it was renamed The Writers’ Prize. The last winners were announced on 13 March 2024. I have found no announcement of a prize since then; if it comes back, this page is updated.
Quick answer
The Rathbones Folio Prize, now called The Writers’ Prize, is a British prize for the best book of the year in English, in any form: fiction, non-fiction or poetry. The books are nominated by the Folio Academy, several hundred writers and critics, and the judges come from the academy too. It was first given in 2014 and is worth £30,000. There have been ten winners. The latest is Liz Berry’s The Home Child, a novel in verse, in 2024.
How this page chooses
This page has every winner, so there is nothing to choose between: the timeline at the top shows all ten with the form each one is written in, and every title has its own entry further down, in the same order.
Under each book is a line of plain fact about the book or its author, and nothing that cannot be checked.
Oldest first, one for each year. The line in red is a fact about the book or its author, not an opinion about it.
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Short stories, many of them about ordinary Americans caught in strange and sometimes futuristic situations. The chair of the judges called them “darkly playful”.
It also won The Story Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award.
A family moves from Delhi to New York in the 1970s. Soon afterwards an accident leaves the older son with severe brain damage, and the younger one, the narrator, grows up in the house built around his care.
It took Sharma thirteen years to write, and also won the International Dublin Literary Award in 2016.
In 2012, after the fall of Gaddafi, Matar goes back to Libya to find out what happened to his father, a critic of the regime who disappeared in 1990.
The first non-fiction winner. It also won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 2017.
The earthquake and tsunami that hit north-east Japan in March 2011 and killed around 18,500 people, told through the families of one village school, and the ghosts the survivors began to see.
Lloyd Parry reported from the disaster zone for six years, as Asia editor of The Times.
Poems about being deaf in a hearing world, about grief for his father, and about his Jamaican and British family.
The first poet to win the prize. The book also won the Ted Hughes Award.
A family drives from New York to Arizona, while children are disappearing at the US border. It ends with a set of Polaroid photographs.
Luiselli was the first woman to win the prize. The book also won the Dublin Literary Award in 2021.
A memoir of an abusive relationship with another woman, written in the second person, each short chapter in a different genre: haunted house, choose-your-own-adventure, fairy tale.
It also won the Lambda Literary Award for non-fiction in 2020.
The life of Thomas Mann, from Lübeck to exile in America, told as a novel: his family, his hidden desires, and the history of Germany that his books could not escape.
Tóibín had written about a real novelist before: The Master, about Henry James, which won the IMPAC Dublin award in 2006.
A memoir of how a Black American woman made herself, told through the singers, writers and artists who shaped her.
The first overall winner under the new category system; the fiction and poetry winners that year were Michelle de Kretser’s Scary Monsters and Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s Quiet.
A novel in verse about Berry’s great-aunt Eliza Showell, one of the children sent from Britain to Canada under the child migrant schemes.
The category winners that year were Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren and Laura Cumming’s Thunderclap.
In 2011 the Booker judges made a point of praising novels that “zip along”, and a group of writers, critics and publishers answered by announcing a new prize, first called The Literature Prize and then the Folio Prize. The idea was that the books would be chosen by people who write them: an academy of writers and critics, who nominate the books and from whom the judges are drawn.
In its first two years it was a fiction prize. From 2017 it took any form, and memoir, reportage and poetry have won more often than novels since.
The Folio Society sponsored the first two prizes, and Rathbones the next seven. When Rathbones stopped, the prize carried on without a sponsor under a new name, The Writers’ Prize, and gave its 2024 award to Liz Berry. I have not found an announcement of a prize since.
A British prize for the best book of the year in English, in any form, chosen by an academy of writers and critics. It was first given in 2014 and has been called The Writers’ Prize since November 2023.
Liz Berry, for The Home Child, a novel in verse, announced on 13 March 2024.
It was renamed The Writers’ Prize in November 2023 and awarded in March 2024. I have found no announcement of a prize since; this page is updated if one comes.
After its first sponsor, the Folio Society. Rathbones, the investment firm, took over from 2017 to 2023.
Any form of writing in English since 2017: novels, stories, memoir, reportage and poetry. In 2014 and 2015 it was for fiction only.
£30,000 to the winner, plus £2,000 to each category winner since 2023.
Twice: Raymond Antrobus’s The Perseverance in 2019 and Liz Berry’s The Home Child in 2024.
Every winner has a full entry on this page. For stories, Tenth of December; for non-fiction, The Return.
Winner list last verified 22 September 2026.
The notes on this page are all mine,
and the books are all theirs.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“When I was writing The Home Child, I liked to imagine that I was reaching back through time – to be able to hold the children in the story very tenderly, as tenderly as I might hold my own sons.”
— Liz Berry, on winning in 2024
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