Wingate Literary Prize

The judges for this year’s Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prizes for Fiction and Non-Fiction are announced today. Sponsored by the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation, the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prizes are Britain’s only major literary awards for Jewish interest books.

Journalist, broadcaster and author, Jonathan Freedland, will chair the judging panel. Journalist and reviewer Hephzibah Anderson; Chief Executive of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, Rabbi Tony Bayfield; author and literary critic, Philip Hensher; and psychoanalyst and author, Susie Orbach, will join him.

Established in 1977, the Wingate Literary Prizes recognise fiction and non-fiction works that stimulate an interest in and awareness of themes of Jewish concern amongst a wider reading public. Last year’s winners were Zadie Smith for The Autograph Man (Fiction) and Sebastian Haffner for Defying Hitler (Non-Fiction). Previous winners have included WG Sebald, Oliver Sacks, Dan Jacobson, Claudia Roden, AB Yehoshua, Amos Oz, Ronald Harwood and Howard Jacobson.

The Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prizes for Fiction and Non-Fiction reward each category winner with £4000. With £300 also awarded to the three shortlisted runners-up in each category, the awards have a total prize value of almost £10,000.

The shortlist will be announced in March 2004 and the winners announced at an awards ceremony at the beginning of April 2004.

Notes to Editors

• The judges for the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize may be available for interview. Please contact Colman Getty PR with requests. 

• Established in 1977 by the late Harold Hyam Wingate, the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prizes are the only major UK awards for books of Jewish interest. The Fiction and Non-Fiction prizes are each worth £4000 and three shortlisted runners-up in each category are awarded £300 each.

• A list of former winners of the Wingate Prizes is available from Colman Getty PR

• Jewish and non-Jewish authors resident in the UK, British Commonwealth, Europe and Israel are eligible. Books submitted must be published in English, either originally or in translation.

• Published in London since 1953, The Jewish Quarterly is one of the foremost literary and cultural journals in the English language. Its spectrum of subjects includes art criticism, fiction, film, history, Judaism, literature, poetry, philosophy, politics, theatre, the Shoah and Zionism. 

• The Harold Hyam Wingate Charitable Foundation is a private grant-giving institution, first established more than forty years ago. It has supported the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prizes for over 20 years.

For further information please contact

Hannah Blake or Dotti Irving at Colman Getty PR

T: 020 7631 2666 E: hannah@colmangettypr.co.uk

Judges

Jonathan Freedland (Chair)

Jonathan Freedland is a columnist for The Guardian. He also writes a

monthly column for the Jewish Chronicle and is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series The Long View as well as The Talk Show on BBC Four television. He is the author of the acclaimed and controversial book, Bring Home the Revolution: the Case for a British Republic and in 2004 will publish Jacob's Gift - a family memoir about Jewishness, identity and belonging.

Hephzibah Anderson

Hephzibah Anderson is debut fiction critic for the Observer, Fiction Editor of the Daily Mail, and a visual arts writer for the Evening Standard. She sits on the editorial board of the Jewish Quarterly, and writes regularly for the Jewish Chronicle, the New Statesman and Zembla Magazine. She also reviews for BBC Radio London and BBC Radio 2.

Tony Bayfield

Rabbi Tony Bayfield is Chief Executive of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain and a leading representative of progressive Jewish scholarly thought. His books include He kissed Him and They Wept and Dialogue With a Difference.

Philip Hensher

Philip Hensher is a renowned novelist and critic. His novels include Kitchen Venom, which won the Somerset Maugham Award, Pleasured, and The Mulberry Empire. He is a regular broadcaster and contributes reviews and articles to various newspapers and journals including The Spectator, the Mail on Sunday and The Independent. He is a member of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2003 he was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 'Best of Young British Novelists'.

Susie Orbach

Susie Orbach is a psychoanalyst and writer. In 1976 she co-founded the Women's Therapy centre in London and in 1981 The Women's Therapy Centre Institute in New York. Her books include The Impossibility of Sex, Fat is a Feminist Issue, Hunger Strike and What Do Women Want? She has also published two collections of her columns from the Guardian - What's Really Going On Here? (1994) and Towards Emotional Literacy.