Manya Wilkinson has won the 2025 Wingate Literary Prize for Lublin (And Other Stories, 2024), a “wholly unique coming of age novel, fusing fable, history and Jewish joke-making, set against the backdrop of the oncoming darkness of the 20th century”.
She was announced as winner at an event at Kings Place as part of Jewish Book Week, chaired by Emily Kasriel, author and trustee of the Wingate Foundation.
Now in its 48th year, the annual prize, worth £4,000 and run in association with the Jewish Literary Foundation, is awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to convey the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.
Previous winners include Amos Oz, Zadie Smith, Oliver Sacks, David Grossman and, most recently, Elizabeth McCracken.
Alongside Lublin, this year’s shortlist featured Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Wildfire); Cold Crematorium by József Debreczeni, translated by Paul Olchváry (Jonathan Cape); Time’s Echo by Jeremy Eichler (Faber); Eight Bright Lights by Sara Gibbs (Headline); and Elena: A Hand Made Life by Miriam Gold (Jonathan Cape).
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