SI Leeds Literary Prize 2012

The SI Leeds Literary Prize 2012 is a groundbreaking new award for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women writers based in the UK.  Our research shows that these writers are significantly under-represented on our bookshelves: in 2010 not a single Black or Asian woman entered the Nielsen Bookdata bestseller list, and only four Black and Asian women from the UK have made the list in the last decade.  We are passionate about the prize being a loudspeaker for Black and Asian women’s voices, and a platform to discover exciting new talent.  We have the backing of an impressive line-up of Patrons, who are influential writers and thinkers with a significant public profile including Bonnie Greer OBE, journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, British novelist Bernardine Evaristo, critic and broadcaster Bidisha and contemporary artist and curator Diane Howse.

The inaugural prize ceremony will take place on 3 October 2012 as part of the Ilkley Literature Festival.  The prize is being run and funded by Soroptimist International of Leeds, part of a worldwide network of Soroptimists who create opportunities to transform the lives of women through dynamic projects and international partnerships.  The prize has also been generously supported by two well-established Yorkshire-based literature organisations, Peepal Tree Press and Ilkley Literature Festival, both of whom have an enviable track record in literature development.  

In the words of Bidisha: "I was honoured to be asked to be a patron of this prize because I believe in joyful positive action, solidarity and diverse and strong cultural leadership. I believe in celebrating talent from all over the world and all people and I believe in redressing the balance and finding genius where genius always really is: in the places nobody has bothered to look.  The prize is important in demonstrating to a world which has always talked down or ignored the value of women’s work and of the work of post-diaspora second generation peoples, apart from a very few favoured names, that our genius is plentiful, not rare; prodigious and prolific, not exceptional or occasional; that it is longstanding, not recent; that it is enduring and not a novelty; and that it is strong and powerful, not marginal or unimportant. The prize is a testament to the importance and manifest talent of women and a tribute to the gift of cultural, national, ethnic and linguistic diversity. The prize is important and necessary but, more than that, it is introduced to the world as an act of joy, happiness and the discovery of new work. Join us in celebration.”  

Supporting the Prize means supporting creativity and helping us to act as a loudspeaker for new voices.  So please add your voice to ours, and let's hear some stories that haven't been told.