Longlist for 15th anniversary of Polari Prizes revealed!

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, the UK and Ireland’s only dedicated prize for LGBTQ+ literature has announced its 2025 longlists for the Polari Book Prize and Polari First Book Prize, celebrating a wealth of genres and forms, including poetry, memoir, crime and thriller, and romantasy.

This year’s longlists include highly acclaimed titles, including the lauded debut novels Isaac by Curtis Garner, Spoilt Creatures by Amy Twigg and Mongrel by Hanako Footman; stunning poetry collections I Cannot Be Good Until You Say It by Sanah Ashan, Bloodsongs by Mae Diansangu and Impossible Heat by Chiara Maguire; and illuminating non-fiction works Revolutionary Acts by Jason Okundaye, Queer as Folklore by Sacha Coward, A Bookshop of One’s Own by Jane Cholmeley, The Diaries of Mr Lucas by Hugo Greenhalgh, Unsuitable by Eleanor Medhurst and A Place of Our Own by June Thomas.

Two-time Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst is longlisted for his latest novel Our Evenings, alongside new landmark works of fiction Like Water Like Sea by Olumide Popoola, Pity by Andrew McMillan and The Last Doorbell by William Parker; John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, is nominated for his novella Earth, and Jackie Kay’s new collection May Day is longlisted alongside poet Robert Hamberger’sNude Against a Rock and Dean Atta’s poetically experimental Person Unlimited. Moving and heart-warming memoirs are also in the runnings, with Lifting Off by Karen McLeod and Calling My Deadname Home: The Trans Bear Diaries by Avi Ben Zeev; and further non-fiction entries include girls etc by Rhian Elizabeth and 3000 Lesbians Go to York by Jane Traies. The shortlists will be announced in late September, and the winners will be announced at a ceremony on Thursday 27th November at the British Library.