The 2023/4 Wingate Literary Prize long list explores close up perspectives on a diverse range of important themes this year, with insights from individuals who have navigated conflict and chronic illness, to tales of conflict, resistance and heroism. The long list is made up of 3 novels and 10 non-fiction titles.
Now in its 47th year, the annual prize, worth £4,000 and run in association with JW3, is awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.
The long-listed books are:
Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein (William Collins)
One Hundred Saturdays by Michael Frank (Souvenir Press)
The Dissident by Paul Goldberg (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Story of the Forest by Linda Grant (Little, Brown)
Resisters by Wolf Gruner (Yale University Press)
In The Garden of the Righteous by Richard Hurowitz (Harper 360)
Still Pictures by Janet Malcolm (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Hero of this Book by Elizabeth McCracken (Jonathan Cape)
Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth by Keiron Pim (Granta)
On Repentance and Repair by Danya Ruttenberg (Beacon Press)
The Diary Keepers by Nina Siegal (Harper Collins)
Your Hearts, Your Scars by Adina Talve-Goodman (Bellevue Literary Press)
Kosher Soul by Michael Twitty (Harper 360)
This year’s judging panel is comprised of the chair, Benjamin Markovits, Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Natasha Solomons and Rabbi Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz.
Chair, Benjamin Markovits says
‘It’s a list not just of good books, but one that shows a wide variety of Jewish life and thought, from the eastern reaches of the Austro-Hungarian empire to the American Midwest, and ranges from satire to elegy, often in the same chapter – a wonderful collection of fictions and non-fictions, and everything in between.’
The Wingate Prize shortlist will be announced late January and the winner will be announced in late February with a ceremony to follow at JW3 in March.