Somerset Maugham Award

The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors. It is awarded to whom they judge to be the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. The prize was instituted in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham and thus bears his name: the award is to be spent on foreign travel. The total fund for each year is £12,000 .

Since 1964, multiple winners have usually been chosen in the same year. In 1975, the award was not given. The award has twice been won by the son of a previous winner: Kingsley Amis (winner in 1955) was the father of Martin Amis (1974), and Nigel Kneale (1950) the father of Matthew Kneale (1988).

Read more about Somerset Maugham Award:  Full List of Winners

Famous quotes containing the words somerset maugham, somerset, maugham and/or award:

    Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
    —W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)

    A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.
    —W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

    What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably ... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
    —W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)

    The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
    Robert Graves (1895–1985)