Jason Allen-Pasaint, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2023. Photo © Adrian Pope for the T. S. Eliot Prize
The T. S. Eliot Foundation is delighted to announce the winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2023 is Jason Allen-Paisant for his second collection Self-Portrait as Othello, published by Carcanet Press.
The judges Paul Muldoon (Chair), Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul said:
Self-Portrait as Othello is a book with large ambitions that are met with great imaginative capacity, freshness and technical flair. As the title would suggest, the poetry is delivered with theatricality and in a range of voices and registers, across geographies and eras. It takes real nerve to pull off a work like this with such style and integrity. We are confident that Self-Portrait as Othello is a book to which readers will return for many years.
Judges Paul Muldoon, Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul chose the T. S. Eliot Prize 2023 Shortlist from 186 poetry collections submitted by British and Irish publishers. The list comprises a former winner and two previously shortlisted poets, as well as two debuts and two second collections. Poets hail from the UK, Ireland, Jamaica, Hong Kong and the USA.
Jason Allen-Paisant is a Jamaican writer and academic who works as a senior lecturer in Critical Theory and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. He’s the author of two poetry collections, Thinking with Trees (Carcanet Press, 2021), winner of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for poetry, and Self-Portrait as Othello (Carcanet Press, 2023), which won the Forward Prize for Best Collection. His non-fiction book, Scanning the Bush, will be published by Hutchinson Heinemann later this year. He lives in Leeds.
The judges announced Jason Allen-Paisant as the winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize 2023 on Monday 15 January, at the award ceremony held at the Wallace Collection, London. On Sunday 14 January the shortlisted poets read at the Royal Festival Hall, London; this is the largest annual poetry event in the UK. An audio version of the Readings will be available on the T. S. Eliot Prize YouTube channel shortly.
Jason Allen-Paisant will receive the winner’s prize money of £25,000. Each shortlisted poet will receive £1,500 in recognition of their achievement in winning a place on the most prestigious shortlist in UK poetry.