Julia Armfield and Jon Ransom have won this year’s Polari prizes for books that explore LGBTQ+ experiences – both with novels that look at water and the sea.
Ransom won the £1,000 Polari first book prize for The Whale Tattoo, while Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea was named winner of the overall prize, which comes with a cash award of £2,000.
Ransom and Armfield were announced as the winners at a ceremony at the British Library on Friday evening. “In their different ways, both of this year’s winning books expand our understanding of what LGBTQ+ literature can and should be,” said Paul Burston, prize founder and chair of judges for both categories.
“These are novels which entertain, seduce and provoke thought,” he added. “They take us out of ourselves and invite us to explore other worlds. They’re also books full of promise. I can’t wait to see what this year’s winning writers do next.”
In The Whale Tattoo, protagonist Joe Gunner navigates difficult memories as he returns to his Norfolk fishing town and renegotiates his relationships with those he left. “Jon Ransom’s novel is suffused with salt air and gay longing,” said judge Adam Zmith, who won last year’s prize for Deep Sniff, a history of poppers.
“It transported me to a life that is not my own, and yet one where I recognised myself. Ransom conjures up gorgeously evocative images for his hostile locations and finds love and energy there,” he added.
Other titles shortlisted alongside Ransom’s were None of the Above by Travis Alabanza, Rising of the Black Sheep by Livia Kojo Alour, The New Life by Tom Crewe, A Visible Man by Edward Enninful and Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder.
Our Wives Under the Sea tells the story of Leah, who unexpectedly returns from a disastrous deep-sea dive, and her wife, Miri, who grapples with the ways Leah changed while under water. The novel “opens up what we believe is possible from queer writing,” said judge Joelle Taylor, who won last year’s prize for C+nto & Othered Poems, which explores butch lesbian counterculture in London. “It is a strange, speculative, poetic and thrilling novel – a heart turner as much as a page turner.”
Armfield’s novel triumphed over five other shortlisted books: Seán Hewitt’s All Down Darkness Wide, Okechukwu Nzelu’s Here Again Now, Jack Parlett’s Fire Island, Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo and Sophie Ward’s The Schoolhouse.
