Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize Explained

The Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize is a British and Irish literary award for a novel focusing on travel, awarded annually by the Society of Authors. It was inaugurated in 2022, and is named for Malcolm Lowry's book Under the Volcano and endowed in memory of Gordon Bowker (1934-2019), Lowry's biographer, by Ramdei Bowker.^[1]

The three judges in the inaugural year of the prize were Caroline Brothers, Philip Hensher and Aamer Hussein. Brothers said of the shortlist:

The prize is awarded for "a novel focusing on the experience of travel away from home" written in English, published in Britain or Ireland, by a British or Irish author or resident. The winner receives £2,000, and a runner-up receives £750.

Winners and shortlists

!Year !Winner !Runner-up !Shortlisted !Source

2022	Sheila Llewellyn, Winter in Tabriz (Sceptre)	Jamie O'Connell, Diving for Pearls (Penguin)	Tessa McWatt, The Snow Line (Scribe UK) Catherine Menon, Fragile Monsters (Penguin) Olivia Sudjic, Asylum Road (Bloomsbury)	^[2]
2023	Aamina Ahmad, The Return of Faraz Ali (Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton)	David Park, Spies in Canaan (Bloomsbury Publishing)	Julia Armfield,Our Wives Under the Sea (Picador, Pan Macmillan) Vesna Goldsworthy, Iron Curtain: A Love Story (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, Penguin Random House) Alex Hyde, Violets (Granta Books) Anjali Joseph, Keeping in Touch (Scribe UK)	^[3]

Notes and References

1. Web site: The Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize . societyofauthors.org . The Society of Authors . 30 June 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220630093719/https://societyofauthors.org/Prizes/Society-of-Authors-Awards/The-Volcano-Prize. 30 June 2022.
2. Web site: Sheila Llewellyn wins Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize . 2023-07-03 . Arts Council NI . en.
3. Web site: 2021-07-12 . The Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize - The Society of Authors . 2023-07-03 . en-GB.