The story behind the prize
The idea of a book prize for chronically ill and disabled authors came to our founder, Jake Goldsmith, in the process of writing his memoir, Neither Weak Nor Obtuse (2019). Jake describes how cystic fibrosis and his continued ill-health define his view of the world. He also reflects on the history of literature on illness, its potential therapeutic value for the writer as its effectiveness in creating social change.
As with disability in general, the literature of disability and chronic illness is too commonly turned away from, leaving non-disabled readers ignorant of the profound difference experienced by many and disallowing a voice to chronically ill and disabled writers. All of the volunteers working to support the prize are motivated by a desire to celebrate difference as represented in literature and to effect positive social change via that representation.
“Disability and chronic illness can become a reality for anyone, and yet it is still not one of the more essential or primary themes of literature when it perhaps deserves to be — given its significance and pervasiveness. The expression of a phenomenology of illness is perhaps capable of being our most laudable and essential literature. Through the Barbellion Prize we hope to encourage greater literary representation of disabled and chronically ill lives and greater appreciation of such writing.”Jake Goldsmith
The prize was last awarded in 2023. After a period of reorganisation the Prize is relaunched in 2025. A committee has been formed to establish the Prize on a secure financial basis, to give it charitable status and to promote and provide the administrative work necessary to run the prize.
Advisor to the Prize, Professor Tom Shakespeare FBA, Professor of Disability Research at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, comments:
"Writers with illnesses and impairments, from Robert Louis Stevenson to Flannery O'Connor to 'W.N.P. Barbellion' himself, have contributed mightily to literature. I applaud the creation of this new prize, hoping it will shine a spotlight on their contemporary successors."Prof. Tom Shakespeare