The BACLS Monograph Prize

Timothy C. Baker, Writing Animals: Language, Suffering, and Animality in Twenty-First-Century Fiction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

A large number of very impressive submissions were made this year for the Monograph Prize. Selecting a winner proved to be difficult, but Writing Animals distinguished itself as a timely study that impressed judges with its scholarship and originality. Underpinned by extensive research on literary critical, theoretical, and philosophical material relating to perceptions of human and nonhuman animals, this study arrives at many important insights. Writing Animals offers a dedicated reading of many contemporary texts, but it also situates recent fiction in the longer historical context of writing about humanity and animality. It will be of key interest to those working in the field of contemporary literary studies.

The BACLS Edited Collection Prize

Sharae Deckard & Stephen Shapiro (eds), World Literature, Neoliberalism, and the Culture of Discontent (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

This is an important collection that complements existing work on neoliberal culture by widening the scope of its investigation beyond the typical North American and British focus. The academic rigour and quality is high; the volume has focused and rich definitions and redefinitions of neo-liberalism and draws attention to writing from a range of contexts. The diversity of perspectives and texts is genuinely impressive; readers will all have the opportunity to learn something new and pertinent.

The BACLS Postgraduate Essay Prize

The BACLS Executive Committee decided not to award the 2019 Postgraduate Essay Prize. A small number of submissions were received this year, most likely as a result of COVID-19.