At the 2024 British Book Awards in London. Image: BBA
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
A Third Freedom to Publish Award
As Publishing Perspectives readers know, the British Book Awards are not all “book awards.” For the purposes of our international professional readership, this program’s “Book Trade Awards” are more pertinent, as we’re a news medium serving the world industry rather than its consumers.
This evening in London (May 13), this year’s “Nibbies,” as they’re sometimes called, were handed out at the Grosvenor House in London, the customary venue since the honors were revived in 2017. The program is a brand of The Bookseller, the United Kingdom’s news medium of record for the publishing industry.
For a third year, the British Book Awards program has issued a Freedom to Publish Award (Arabella Pike and Salman Rushdie were the first two recipients). This is perhaps the most important of the Nibbies’ recognitions, reflecting, for example, the International Publishers Association‘s (IPA) pivotal Prix Voltaire and the Association of American Publishers‘ International Freedom to Publish Award.
This year, the winner is Grigori Chkhartishvili, who writes as Boris Akunin. A Georgian-Russian historical fiction writer, essayist, and translat0r now based in the UK, Chkhartishvili—a critic of Vladimir Putin’s actions and policies toward Ukraine—has been placed under a Russian arrest warrant in absentia, meaning that he cannot return to Russia without facing potential arrest, not unlike the writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, sentenced in absentia to prison in August 2023.
Grigori Chkhartishvili
At Monday’s awards show, Chkhartishvili was presented the award by former Iran-prisoner Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe, whose own book is expected in October from Penguin Random House’s Chatto & Windus.
Chkhartishvili said, “”I am immensely honored to be given this award. And I am immensely sad too, because I am a Russian author without the freedom to publish in my own country.
“My dream is to see the times when there will be no need for this award anywhere in the world, the times when the ‘Freedom to Publish’ will have become history.”
Philip Jones, The Bookseller editor who heads up the small army of jurors for the British Book Awards, said, “This award was established at a moment when the threats to free expression at home and abroad were rising, and unfortunately over the past three years we’ve only seen more and more instances of censorship, silencing and side-lining among our communities.
“We must continue to stand by writers, their publishers, and booksellers, in the struggle against the suppression of legal, legitimate, and necessary criticism.”
The 2024 Book Trade Award Winners
While the British Book Awards event each year is heavy on showbizzy-gala fun for members of the United Kingdom’s book publishing industry, there are so many book and author awards in the UK market that the “book of the year” accolades for various publications may have less staying power over time than the industry awards, which recognize the professional players in the business for particularly significant work.
That’s where we’ll start, then, with the 17 industry awards of the Nibbies.
Designer Jack Smyth, whose work includes the Oneworld publication of ‘Prophet Song,’ wins the trade award for design at the 2024 British Book Awards. With him are hosts Lauren Laverne and Rhys Stephenson. Image: British Book Awards
- Marketing Strategy: Abbie Slater, Sian Richefond, Emily Merrill for Yellowface, HarperCollins UK / The Borough Press
- Publicity Campaign: Etty Eastwood for Ultra-Processed People, Penguin Random House / Cornerstone
- Independent Bookstore: Book-ish, Crickhowell, Wales
- Small Press: Magic Cat Publishing, a children’s publisher
- Academic, Educational, and Professional Publisher: Collins
- Children’s Bookseller: The Children’s Bookshop
- Export Award: Bloomsbury
- Rights Professional: Karen Lawler, Hachette Children’s Group
- Literary Agent: Becky Brown and Norah Perkins, Curtis Brown
- Imprint: Hachette UK / Little, Brown / Piatkus Fiction
- Editor: Kishani Widyaratna, HarperCollins / 4th Estate
- Designer: Jack Smyth, Jack Smyth Design
- Individual Bookseller: Amanda Dunne Fulmer, Halfway Up the Stairs
- Book Retailer: The Children’s Bookshop
- Independent Publisher: Profile Books
- Children’s Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books
- Publisher: Penguin Random House / Ebury
‘Book of the Year’ Award Winners
A good moment for political nonfiction, Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge from Penguin Random House / Jonathan Cape beat both Britney Spears and Harry, Duke of Sussex, to win the nonfiction narrative award.
You may note that the overall winner this time is a murder-mystery puzzle book, Murdle, which also won the nonfiction and “lifestyle and Illustrated” categories.
The winner of the author for the year award, Katherine Rundell, won for a book, Impossible Creatures, that won the children’s fiction prize and was nominated for four other awards in both the book and trade categories.
And in fiction, the story behind these awards is particularly interesting, as this is the second consecutive year in which the American writer Rebecca F. Kuang has won.
Audiobook Fiction
- None of This is True by Lisa Jewell, read by Nicola Walker and Louise Brealey, Penguin Random House Audio
Audiobook Nonfiction (supported by Audiobookish)
- Strong Female Character written and read by Fern Brady, Hachette UK / Octopus / Brazen
Katherine Rundell
Children’s Fiction (supported by The Week Junior)
- Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Children’s Illustrated (supported by Lovereading4kids)
- Bunny vs Monkey: Multiverse Mix-up by written and illustrated by Jamie Smart, David Fickling Books
Children’s Nonfiction (supported by The Week Junior Science and Nature)
- Brilliant Black British History by Atinuke, illustrated by Kingsley Nebechi, Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Crime and Thriller
- None of This is True by Lisa Jewell, read by Nicola Walker and Louise Brealey, Penguin Random House / Century / Cornerstone
Début Fiction (supported by Spotify)
- In Memoriam by Alice Winn, Penguin General / Viking
Discover
- Lessons from Our Ancestors by Raksha Dave, illustrated by Kimberlie Clinthorne-Wong (Magic Cat Publishing)
Rebecca F. Kuang, unable to attend the British Book Awards event, sent a greeting from Germany
Fiction (supported by Scala Radio)
- Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang, HarperCollins / The Borough Press
Note: Rebecca F. Kuang, an American, won the 2023 British Book Award in fiction, as well, in that case for Babel, or the Necessity of Violence from HarperVoyager,
Nonfiction: Lifestyle and Illustrated
- Murdle by T. Karber, Profile Books / Souvenir Press
Nonfiction: Narrative
- Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart, Penguin Random House / Vintage / Jonathan Cape
Pageturner (supported by Stylist)
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, Hachette UK / Little, Brown / Piatkus Fiction
Full lists of winners in both ranks, trade and “book of the year,” are here.
More on the British Book Awards is here. More from us on publishing and book awards in general is here. And more on the UK book market and industry is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.
Porter Anderson is a former associate editor of The FutureBook at The Bookseller.
