These Are The Best LGBTQ+ Books Of The Last Year

The UK and Ireland’s only dedicated prize for LGBTQ+ literature has announced its 2024 longlists: the Polari Book Prize, the Polari First Book Prize and the bi-annual Polari Children’s & YA Prize. Not limited by genre or form, the Polari prize commends the year’s best fiction, memoir, poetry, translation and more. Here’s who made the longlist this year.

The Polari Prize 2024

‘The quality, range and sheer volume of submissions this year presented a real challenge for the judges,’ shares Polari Prize founder Paul Burston. ‘With so many great titles to choose from, we really had our work cut out. Taken together, this year’s longlists represent a diversity of LGBTQ voices and genres, from dazzling debut novels to a much-loved author’s final memoir, provocative poetry, witty comic art and genre-expanding crime fiction. These are books worth celebrating.’

Who Is On The Judging Panel?

Polari Prize founder Paul Burston will chair the judging panel for both the Polari Book Prize and the Polari First Book Prize. For the former, he will be joined by Julia Armfield (Polari Book Prize winner 2023), Suzi Feay, Chris Gribble and author and V.G. Lee. Judging the Polari First Book Prize are Rachel Holmes, Karen McLeod, Jon Ransom (Polari First Book Prize winner 2023) and Simon Richardson.

The judges for the Polari Children’s & YA Prize are Rayyan Aboo, Zoey Dixon, Erica Gillingham, Sam Sedgeman and Jodie Lancet-Grant, who also chairs.

Polari Book Prize Longlist 2024

The Polari Book Prize 2024

‘Both the range and quality of submissions this year made the long listing task a real challenge for all of the judges,’ says judge Chris Gribble. ‘From graphic work to novels, essays to autobiography, poetry to history, the books that were submitted this year turned our minds outwards, backwards and forwards. We were shown new tellings of the past, had fresh light cast on our current times and were given glances of the future that we won’t forget in a hurry.’

The 10 titles up for the £2,000 prize are:

• Killing Jericho by William Hussey (Bonnier)
• The Gallopers by Jon Ransom (Muswell Press)
• The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants by Orlando Ortega-Medina (Bywater Books)
• Word Monkey by Christopher Fowler (Transworld)
• Forty Lies by David Shenton (Knockabout)
• One Last Song by Nathan Evans (Inkandescent)
• Hard Drive by Paul Stephenson (Carcanet)
• Divisible By Itself and One by Kae Tempest (Picador)
• Blue Hunger by Viola Di Grado, tr. Jamie Richards (Scribe)
• The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan (Orion)

Jon Ransom is nominated for his second novel, The Gallopers. Last year, his debut novel The Whale Tattoo bagged the Polari First Book Prize.

Polari First Book Prize Longlist 2024

The Polari First Book Prize 2024

‘This is an exciting and diverse longlist, representing the very best of LGBTQ+ writing today,’ shares judge Jon Ransom. The 10 debut works up for the £1,000 prize are:

• Neon Roses by Rachel Dawson (John Murray)
• Local Fires by Joshua Jones (Parthian Books)
• Sunburn by Chloe Michelle (Verve Books)
• A Trans Man Walks into a Gay Bar by Harry Nicholas (JKP)
• Patterflash by Adam Lowe (Peepal Press)
• Bellies by Nicola Dinan (Penguin)
• Greekling by Kostya Tsolakis (Nine Arches Press)
• Transitional: In One Way or Another, We All Transition by Munroe Bergdorf (Bloomsbury)
• Last Dance at the Discotheque for Deviants by Paul David Gould (Unbound)
• Rosewater by Liv Little (Dialogue)

Polari Children’s & YA Prize Longlist 2024

The Polari Children’s & YA prize

The Polari Children’s & YA Prize covers an array of fiction and non-fiction aimed at all ages, from picture books all the way through to YA. ‘What a joy it’s been to judge the prize this time round,’ says Chair of judges Jodie Lancet-Grant. ‘We’ve received such a brilliant array of joyful LGBTQ+ titles for kids and young adults, and it’s been particularly heartening to see how often characters’ queerness is such an incidental part of their story.’

The 10 titles up for this £1,000 prize are:

• Bitterthorn by Kat Dunn (Andersen)
• Out of the Blue by Robert Tregoning (Bloomsbury)
• Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot (Scholastic)
• The Fights That Make Us by Sarah Hagger-Holt (Usborne)
• Jamie by L.D. Lapinski (Orion)
• Gwen and Art are not in Love by Lex Croucher (Bloomsbury)
• Away With Words by Sophie Cameron (Little Tiger)
• All Bodies are Wonderful: An Inclusive Guide for Talking About You by Beth Cox, illustrated by Samantha Meredith (BSmall Publishing)
• If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So (Little Tiger)
• Timid by Harry Woodgate (Little Tiger)

Awarded every two years, the 2024 Prize is awarded in memory of Emerson Milford Dickson, previous judge of the prize, who tragically passed away last year.

DISCOVER

The shortlist announcement will follow on Monday 30 September, and the winners’ ceremony will return to the British Library for a third year on Tuesday 29 November.

Stay up to date with Polari at polarisalon.com