British Lesbian Novelist, Maureen Duffy, 91, Wins New Literary Award Launched By First Black Woman To Win The Booker
When Bernardine Evaristo won a £100,000 award, she founded the RSL Pioneer prize for women writers over 60 — and chose Duffy as the first recipient.
Featured Image: Maureen Duffy, British Writer, 1968 via Getty Images (credit: Evening Standard)
When British author Bernardine Evaristo won the the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award this summer, it came with an unexpected boon: a lot of money. The author and professor was struck with an idea. She decided to turn the windfall into “the greater good” and generously used the £100,000 ($136,000 USD) to found the RSL Pioneer prize, to pay tribute to pioneering women writers over 60.
“As an older woman myself, my fortunes radically improved when I won the Booker prize in 2019 [Girl, Woman, Other], and it felt that this latest bonanza was one to share, not to keep,” Evaristo wrote in The Observer on Sunday.
Bernardine Evaristo and Maureen Duffy. Photo: Leo Cackett, courtesy of Royal Society of Literature
Each year over the next decade, a woman writer will be chosen by a jury to receive an award and cash prize of £10,000, to be be administered by the Royal Society of Literature. This year, however, as Evaristo winds down from her tenure as President of the RSL, she is doing the choosing herself.
“It was a no-brainer to me that it should go to the inspirational writer and campaigner Maureen Duffy,” wrote Evaristo. “Now in her 90s, Duffy has forged a singular path for herself as the writer of more than 60 works, including poetry, fiction, plays for theatre, radio and television, and non-fiction…Alongside her prolific creativity, her activism for gay and author rights is unparalleled.”
Photo by Fay Godwin: via Instagram, Royal Society of Literature (collection, National Portrait Gallery)
Margaret Duffy, who campaigned for gay rights in the 1960’s and was one of the UK’s first openly lesbian public figures, began life with humble beginnings during an era when being the child of a single-mother carried a profound social stigma. Her father left the family when she was young, and her mother died of Tuberculosis when she was 15. But Duffy got an early start paving a way for herself, heeding her mother’s words about the importance of education and studying English at King’s College London following grammar school. Now one of Britain’s foremost writers, Duffy has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and King’s College London since 1985.
Duffy’s notable works include the 1966 novel The Microcosm – one of the first openly lesbian novels in Britain. Her last poetry collection, Wanderer, was published in 2020 – exploratory passages to India and Ravenna, which the author has described as ‘a kind of elegy to life and love.’
“It felt right that I should share this substantial and unexpected windfall with other older women writers as a way to acknowledge their pioneer spirits and achievements,” said Evaristo, per The Guardian. “It’s very easy to forget the feminist struggles of the past and the intrepid women who paved the way for successive generations, and it’s important to celebrate our trailblazers while they are still around to enjoy it.”
Photo courtesty of Jonathan Clowes Ltd. Literary Agents and The Royal Society of Literature
