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WH Smith Literary Award

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The WH Smith Literary Award was an award founded in 1959 by British high street retailer WH Smith to "encourage and bring international esteem to authors of the British Commonwealth". Originally open to all residents of the UK, the Commonwealth and Ireland, it later admitted foreign works in translation and works by US authors. The final three winners were Americans (Philip Roth, Donna Tartt and Richard Powers), and 2005 was the award's final year.[1]

The WH Smith Illustration Award ran from 1987 to 1994.

The WH Smith Mind-Boggling Book Award for children's literature ran from 1993 to 1996.

WH Smith sponsors the National Book Awards Children's Book of the Year (the "British Children's Book Award" through 2009).

Winners

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YearAuthorTitle
1959 Patrick WhiteVoss
1960 Laurie LeeCider With Rosie
1961 Nadine GordimerFriday's Footprint
1962 J. R. AckerleyWe Think the World of You
1963 Gabriel FieldingThe Birthday King
1964 Ernst GombrichMeditations on a Hobby-Horse
1965 Leonard WoolfBeginning Again
1966 R. C. HutchinsonA Child Possessed
1967 Jean RhysWide Sargasso Sea
1968 V. S. NaipaulThe Mimic Men
1969 Robert GittingsJohn Keats
1970 John FowlesThe French Lieutenant's Woman
1971 Nan FairbrotherNew Lives, New Landscapes
1972 Kathleen RaineThe Lost Country
1973 Brian MooreCatholics
1974 Anthony PowellTemporary Kings
1975 Jon StallworthyWilfred Owen
1976 Seamus HeaneyNorth
1977 Ronald LewinSlim: The Standardbearer
1978 Patrick Leigh FermorA Time of Gifts
1979 Mark GirouardLife in the English Country House
1980 Thom GunnSelected Poems 1950–1975
1981 Isabel ColegateThe Shooting Party
1982 George ClareLast Waltz in Vienna
1983 A. N. WilsonWise Virgin
1984 Philip LarkinRequired Writing
1985 David HughesThe Pork Butcher
1986 Doris LessingThe Good Terrorist
1987 Elizabeth JenningsCollected Poems 1953–1985
1988 Robert HughesThe Fatal Shore
1989 Christopher HillA Turbulent, Seditious and Factious People: John Bunyan and His Church
1990 V. S. PritchettA Careless Widow and Other Stories
1991 Derek WalcottOmeros
1992 Thomas PakenhamThe Scramble for Africa
1993 Michèle RobertsDaughters of the House
1994 Vikram SethA Suitable Boy
1995 Alice MunroOpen Secrets
1996 Simon SchamaLandscape and Memory
1997 Orlando FigesA People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924
1998 Ted HughesTales from Ovid
1999 Beryl BainbridgeMaster Georgie
2000 Melvyn BraggThe Soldier's Return
2001 Philip RothThe Human Stain
2002 Ian McEwanAtonement
2003 Donna TarttThe Little Friend
2004 Richard PowersThe Time of Our Singing
2005 Philip RothThe Plot Against America

WH Smith Mind-Boggling Book Award

[edit]

For a few years, W H Smith also offered a children's book award. The judges were children between nine and twelve, and the intention was to promote books which were "accessible to children in content and price, as well as offering a gripping read."[2]

The winners were:

References

[edit]
  1. WH Smith Literary Award at aLibraryThing
  2. "Mind-Boggling Book Award". Archived from the original on 2 October 2011. Retrieved 20 March 2011.