The TLS Ackerley Prize is awarded annually to a literary autobiography of excellence, written by an author of British nationality and published during the preceding year. The winner receives £4,000.
The prize was established by Nancy West, née Ackerley, sister of English author and editor J. R. Ackerley. It was first awarded in 1982.
The prize is judged by the trustees of the J. R. Ackerley Trust; biographer and historian Peter Parker (Chair), the biographer and critic Claire Harman, and the writer and editor Michael Caines. There is no formal submission process for the award — judges simply "call in" books to be added to their longlist.
Former judges include the novelist Francis King, the biographer Michael Holroyd, the editor of Ackerley's letters, Neville Braybrooke, food writer and historian Colin Spencer, the biographer and historian Richard Davenport-Hines and the novelist and short story writer Georgina Hammick.
In 2023, the Prize's long partnership with English PEN, when it was known as the PEN Ackerley Prize, came to an end. The award reverted to its original name of the Ackerley Prize.
In 2024, the Prize formed a partnership with the Times Literary Supplement and was renamed the TLS Ackerley Prize.
Recipients 1982: Edward Blishen, Shaky Relations 1983: Joint winners: Kathleen Dayus, Her People Ted Walker, High Path 1984: Richard Cobb, Still Life 1985: Angelica Garnett, Deceived with Kindness 1986: Dan Jacobson, Time and Time Again 1987: Diana Athill, After the Funeral 1988: Anthony Burgess, Little Wilson and Big God 1989: John Healy, The Grass Arena 1990: Germaine Greer, Daddy We Hardly Knew You 1991: Paul Binding, St Martin's Ride 1992: John Osborne, Almost a Gentleman 1993: Barry Humphries, More, Please 1994: Blake Morrison, When Did You Last See Your Father? 1995: Paul Vaughan, Something in Linoleum 1996: Eric Lomax, The Railway Man 1997: Tim Lott, The Scent of Dried Roses 1998: Katrin Fitzherbert, True to Both Myselves 1999: Margaret Forster, Precious Lives 2000: Mark Frankland, Child of My Time 2001: Lorna Sage, Bad Blood 2002: Michael Foss, Out of India: A Raj Childhood 2003: Jenny Diski, Stranger on a Train 2004: Bryan Magee, Clouds of Glory: A Hoxton Childhood 2005: Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, Half an Arch 2006: Alan Bennett, Untold Stories 2007: Brian Thompson, Keeping Mum 2008: Miranda Seymour, In My Father's House 2009: Julia Blackburn, The Three of Us 2010: Gabriel Weston, Direct Red: A Surgeon's View of Her Life-or-Death Profession 2011: Michael Frayn, My Father's Fortune 2012: Duncan Fallowell, How to Disappear 2013: Richard Holloway, Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt (Canongate) 2014: Sonali Deraniyagala, Wave (Virago) 2015: Henry Marsh, Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) 2016: Alice Jolly, Dead Babies and Seaside TownsCowdrey, Katherine (13 July 2016),"Alice Jolly's crowdfunded memoir wins PEN Ackerley Prize", The Bookseller. 2017: Amy Liptrot, The Outrun (Canongate) 2018: Richard Beard, The Day That Went Missing (Harvill Secker) 2019: Yrsa Daley-Ward, The Terrible (Penguin)Chandler, Mark (10 July 2019), "Daley-Ward wins PEN Ackerley Prize", The Bookseller. Retrieved 12 July 2019. 2020: Alison Light, A Radical Romance: A Memoir of Love, Grief and Consolation (Fig Tree) 2021: Claire Wilcox, Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes (Bloomsbury) 2022: Frances Stonor Saunders, The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border (Jonathan Cape) 2023: Nancy Campbell, Thunderstone: Finding Shelter From the Storm (Elliott & Thompson) 2024: Catherine Taylor, The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern Time (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) 2025: Jeff Young, Wild Twin: Dream Maps of a Lost Soul and Drifter.
References
External links Official website