This is an annual award of £10,000 for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place.

The 2010 Prize

This year's Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize has been awarded to Ian Thomson for The Dead Yard—Tales of Modern Jamaica (Faber).

Judges Kathleen Jamie, Professor Steve Jones and Penelope Lively, were united in their praise for the book:

‘For those to whom Jamaica means only music, sunshine and cricket, Dead Yard will be a revelation. Thomson is a brave writer who takes himself into unexpected, sometime edgy places. The island he describes is a place of verdant beauty, history-ridden, post-colonial with an undertow of disappointment and violence. This is the best kind of travel writing: stimulating, educative and evocative.’

Ian Thomson lives in London with his wife and children and is the author of a book on Haiti, Bonjour Blanc.  His biography on Primo Levi won him the RSL W. H. Heinemann Award in 2003.

Also included on the 2010 Shortlist were: 

Past recipients