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 2012 Prize

The winner of the 2012 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize will be announced in late May.

This year's judges are Nick Laird, Michèle Roberts and Kamila Shamsie.
 

The 2011 Prize

Edmund de Waal has been awarded the £10,000 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize for The Hare with Amber Eyes (Chatto).

Praise from judges Don Paterson, Ali Smith and Sarah Waters:

Don Paterson admired de Waal’s use of the history of a family heirloom – a collection of delicate netsuke – ‘as a device to trace the growth of the anti-Semitism that led to the horror of the holocaust. It is pitch-perfect in its haunting evocation of time and place, and never slips into sentimentalism; his book is as smooth and perfect as his own ceramic works’.

‘A work whose lightness, when it comes to dealing with the weight of history, is almost miraculous.’ - Ali Smith

Sarah Waters called the book ‘a very worthy winner of this important literary prize – a stunning piece of writing, conjuring up one memorable location after another with economy and grace’.

Edmund de Waal is Professor of Ceramics at the University of Westminster and lives in London with his family.  Apprenticed as a potter, he studied in Japan and read English at Cambridge. His porcelain is shown in museums around the world, and he has recently made installations for the V&A and Tate Britain.

Also on the 2011 shortlist were:

Past recipients