The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. Since 2017 I have worked with the organisation on the £25,000 British Academy Book Prize which rewards ground-breaking works of non-fiction from around the world that deepen understanding of people, societies and cultures..

As well as consulting on the development of the Prize, I have led the communications strategy to take this important literary prize to a wider national and international audience and to significantly increase engagement with publishers. This has been achieved through media, events and partnerships.

Since a complete restructuring of the Prize in 2018, the number of submissions and breadth of media coverage has continued to grow year-on-year.

Media coverage has included news and interviews including on BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight and Free Thinking; BBC World Service Newshour; The Observer; Press Association; Five Books; Literary Hub; Times of India; The Bookseller; and Publishing Perspectives. We are also delighted to have developed a successful partnership with the London Review Bookshop.

In 2024, with the support from Hawthornden Foundation, and in partnership with the international photography agency Panos Pictures, we commissioned the photographer Arko Datto to visually reinterpret the 2023 winning book, Courting India by Nandini Das. The idea was to bring to life the themes explored in the book and to broaden dialogue with a wider audience. The resulting images were used as part of a wider media campaign for the Prize, exhibited as part of Open House Weekend in London, and will be shown at festivals in India in 2025. You can see some of Datto’s incredible images in the Guardian picture gallery here.

Do you have a literary prize that needs a radical re-think? Do get in touch.