The Literary Encyclopedia Book Prizes 2023

We are pleased to announce The Literary Encyclopedia book prizes for 2023.

We reviewed many fine works which gave us great pleasure to read and reassured us of the intellectual vitality and strength of our profession and, in particular, of the wonderful skills of the thousands who have worked to make The Literary Encyclopedia a shining example of scholarly learning and critical intelligence. Politicians around the world who are cutting humanities departments and deeming literary studies not necessary for a thriving modern culture should ask themselves whether they would prefer uneducated ignorance to what they will find here.

The judging process also taught us the difficulty of comparing such disparate objects as an innovative and insightful rereading of four nineteenth-century novels, a fine scholarly edition of a famous author’s letters, a capacious study of mainly German medieval literature and much else besides, and an eye-opening exploration of Bangladeshi women’s writing. After an attempt to fit these objects into a Procrustean bed, we decided to throw the bed away and declare four incommensurable winners.

We would like to thank all those that entered their books to the prize, and are indebted to the many colleagues who gave us their views, the judging panel, and, above all, to our Chair.

The joint winners, in alphabetical order, for each prize are:

Literatures originally written in English

Literatures written in languages other than English

We hope that you delight in them as much as we do.