The winners of the 2020 Windham-Campbell Prizes have been announced. Eight writers, who are being honored for their literary achievement or promise, will receive $165,000 each to support their work. The prize is administered by Yale University, where the papers of the prize patrons Donald Windham and Sandy Campbell are housed in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. There is no shortlist and the judges are not named.
This year's winners are, in drama, Julia Cho (United States) and Aleshea Harris (United States); in fiction, Yiyun Li (United States) and Namwali Serpell (United States/Zambia); in nonfiction, Anne Boyer (United States) and Maria Tumarkin (Australia); and in poetry, Bhanu Kapil (United Kingdom/United States) and Jonah Mixon-Webster (United States).
The announcement was originally scheduled to be made in London to coincide with the year's London Book Fair, but was presented online instead. "Self-isolation is the ideal time to catch up on your reading," U.K. writer Damian Barr said in a videocast announcing the winners.
