Last modified on Wed 19 May 2021 09.40 EDT
The Scottish author Shola von Reinhold has won the Republic of Consciousness prize for small presses for their âdazzlingâ queer debut novel LOTE. But the £20,000 prize money will not go to von Reinhold alone: instead, in a first, it is being split among the 10 publishers on the longlist.
LOTE follows Mathilda, a black woman who becomes fixated by a forgotten black Scottish modernist poet. Released by London independent press Jacaranda as part of founder Valerie Brandesâ initiative to publish 20 black British writers in 2020, it is, said prize judge John Mitchinson, a dazzling novel that makes the reader âstand back and gasp at the wit, beauty and mischief von Reinhold has brocaded into the storyâ.
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