The Somerset Maugham Award was created and endowed in 1947 by W. Somerset Maugham to enable British authors under the age of thirty-five to enrich their writing through foreign travel. It is granted in respect of a published work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry but excluding dramatic works, and the annual £12,000 prize fund is administered by the Society of Authors. Since 1964 it has been the practice to make multiple awards each year.
The most famous recipient was Kingsley Amis whose Lucky Jim published in 1954, won despite his well known aversion for foreign travel and the fact that Maugham disliked the book and believed Amis to be "scum".
Winners of the Somerset Maugham Award
- 1947 - A. L. Barker, Innocents
- 1948 - P. H. Newby, Journey to the Interior
- 1949 - Hamish Henderson, Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica
- 1950 - Nigel Kneale, Tomato Cain & Other Stories
- 1951 - Roland Camberton, Scamp
- 1952 - Francis King, The Dividing Stream
- 1953 - Emyr Humphreys, Hear and Forgive
- 1954 - Doris Lessing, Five Short Novels
- 1955 - Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
- 1956 - Elizabeth Jennings, A Way of Looking
- 1957 - George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin
- 1959 - Thom Gunn, A Sense of Movement
- 1960 - Ted Hughes, The Hawk in the Rain
- 1961 - V. S. Naipaul, Miguel Street
- 1962 - Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War
- 1963 - David Storey, Flight Into Camden
- 1964 - Dan Jacobson, Time of Arrival
- 1964 - John Le Carre, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
- 1965 - Peter Everett, Negatives
- 1966 - Michael Frayn, The Tin Men
- 1966 - Julian Mitchell, The White Father
- 1967 - B. S. Johnson, Trawl
- 1967 - Andrew Sinclair, The Better Half
- 1968 - Paul Bailey, At the Jerusalem
- 1968 - Seamus Heaney, Death of a Naturalist
- 1969 - Angela Carter, Several Perceptions
- 1970 - Jane Gaskell, A Sweet Sweet Summer
- 1970 - Piers Paul Read, Monk Dawson
- 1971 - Susan Hill, I'm the King of the Castle
- 1971 - Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry
- 1971 - Michael Hastings, Tussy Is Me
- 1972 - Douglas Dunn, Terry Street
- 1972 - Gillian Tindall, Fly Away Home
- 1973 - Peter Prince, Play Things
- 1973 - Paul Strathern, A Season in Abyssinia
- 1973 - Jonathan Street, Prudence Dictates
- 1974 - Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers
- 1975 - No Award
- 1976 - Dominic Cooper, The Dead of Winter
- 1976 - Ian McEwan, First Love, Last Rites
- 1977 - Richard Holmes, Shelley: The Pursuit
- 1978 - Tom Paulin, A State of Justice
- 1978 - Nigel Williams, My Life Closed Twice
- 1979 - Helen Hodgman, Jack & Jill
- 1979 - Sara Maitland, Daughter of Jerusalem
- 1980 - Max Hastings, Bomber Command
- 1980 - Christopher Reid, Arcadia
- 1980 - Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings
- 1981 - Julian Barnes, Metroland
- 1981 - Clive Sinclair, Hearts of Gold
- 1981 - A. N. Wilson, The Healing Art
- 1982 - William Boyd, A Good Man in Africa
- 1982 - Adam Mars-Jones, Lantern Lecture
- 1983 - Lisa St Aubin de Teran, Keepers of the House
- 1984 - Peter Ackroyd, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
- 1984 - Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity
- 1984 - Sean O'Brien, The Indoor Park
- 1985 - Blake Morrison, Dark Glasses
- 1985 - Jeremy Reed, By the Fisheries
- 1985 - Jane Rogers, Her Living Image
- 1986 - Patricia Ferguson, Family Myths and Legends
- 1986 - Adam Nicolson, Frontiers
- 1986 - Tim Parks, Tongues of Flame
- 1987 - Stephen Gregory, The Cormorant
- 1987 - Janni Howker, Isaac Campion
- 1987 - Andrew Motion, The Lamberts
- 1988 - Jimmy Burns, The Land That Lost Its Heroes
- 1988 - Carol Ann Duffy, Selling Manhattan
- 1988 - Matthew Kneale, Whore Banquets
- 1989 - Rupert Christiansen, Romantic Affinities
- 1989 - Alan Hollingshurst, The Swimming Pool Library
- 1989 - Deirdre Madden, The Birds of the Innocent Wood
- 1990 - Mark Hudson, Our Grandmother's Drums
- 1990 - Sam North, The Automatic Man
- 1990 - Nicholas Shakespeare, The Vision of Elena Silves
- 1991 - Peter Benson, The Other Occupant
- 1991 - Lesley Glaister, Honour Thy Father
- 1991 - Helen Simpson, Four Bare Legs in a Bed
- 1992 - Geoff Dyer, But Beautiful
- 1992 - Lawrence Norfolk, Lempriere's Dictionary
- 1992 - Gerard Woodward, Householder
- 1993 - Dea Birket, Jella
- 1993 - Duncan McLean, Bucket of Tongues
- 1993 - Glyn Maxwell, Out of the Rain
- 1994 - Jackie Kay, Other Lovers
- 1994 - A. L. Kennedy, Looking for the Possible Dance
- 1994 - Philip Marsden, Crossing Place
- 1995 - Patrick French, Younghusband
- 1995 - Simon Garfield, The End of Innocence
- 1995 - Kathleen Jamie, The Queen of Sheba
- 1995 - Laura Thompson, The Dogs
- 1996 - Katherine Pierpoint, Truffle Beds
- 1996 - Alan Warner, Morvern Callar
- 1997 - Rhidian Brook, The Testimony of Taliesin Jones
- 1997 - Kate Clanchy, Slattern
- 1997 - Philip Hensher, Kitchen Venom
- 1997 - Francis Spufford, I May Be Some Time
- 1998 - Rachel Cusk, The Country Life
- 1998 - Jonathan Rendall, This Bloody Mary Is the Last Thing I Own
- 1998 - Kate Summerscale, The Queen of Whale Cay
- 1998 - Robert Twigger, Angry White Pyjamas
- 1999 - Andrea Ashworth, Once in a House on Fire
- 1999 - Paul Farley, The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You
- 1999 - Giles Foden, The Last King of Scotland
- 1999 - Jonathan Freedland, Bring Home the Revolution
- 2000 - Bella Bathurst, The Lighthouse Sevensons
- 2000 - Sarah Waters, Affinity
- 2001 - Edward Platt, Leadville
- 2001 - Ben Rice, Pobby and Dingan
- 2002 - Charlotte Hobson, Black Earth City
- 2002 - Marcel Theroux, The Paperchase
- 2003 - Hari Kunzru, The Impressionist
- 2003 - William Fiennes, The Snow Geese
- 2003 - Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of RemarkableThings
- 2004 - Charlotte Mendelson, Daughters of Jerusalem
- 2004 - Mark Blayney, Two Kinds of Silence
- 2004 - Robert Macfarlane, Mountains of the Mind
- 2005 - Justin Hill, Passing Under Heaven
- 2005 - Maggie O'Farrell, The Distance Between Us
- 2006 - Chris Cleave , Incendiary
- 2006 - Owen Sheers, Skirrid Hill
- 2006 - Zadie Smith, On Beauty
- 2007 - Horatio Clare, Running for the Hills
- 2007 - James Scudamore, The Amnesia Clinic
- 2008 - Steven Hall, The Raw Shark Texts
- 2008 - Nick Laird, On Purpose
- 2008 - Gwendoline Riley, Joshua Spassky
- 2008 - Adam Thirlwell, Miss Herbert
References
http://www.societyofauthors.net/soa/page_id_sub.php4?pid=34&parentid=7&par_nm=Prizes,%20grants%20and%20awards
http://facstaff.unca.edu/moseley/maugham.html