Franco-British Council Short Story Prize: the results

This is now the second year that Prospect has collaborated with the Franco-British Council on its annual prize for short fiction about France, and it was my pleasure this year to sit on the panel of judges choosing a winner in the two categories: secondary schools and undergraduates. Also on the panel were Baroness Joyce Quin, Boyd Tonkin of the Independent, and the authors Ian Rankin and Bonnie Greer—and between us we selected six exceptional stories as prize winners, all of which you can now read on the Prospect website (click here to see the top three secondary school stories, and here for the top three undergraduate ones).

As I've discussed before in Prospect, literary prizes often stir mixed emotions in both readers and judges. Here, though, the overwhelming sense was of great pleasure at the eloquence and skill on display, especially at a time when it's become almost axiomatic that students' and school pupils' writing abilities are stunted in comparison to those of previous generations. I felt that the two winning stories, in particular—"Basma" by Claire Coggins in the secondary school category and "Gaston Gets His Just Desserts" by Karis Fiorucci in the undergraduate category—were remarkable achievements, and urge you to read them. Our thanks to all who entered, and congratulations to all six prize-winners: Claire Coggins, James Greenwood and Laura James in the schools category, and Karis Fiorucci, David Wolf and Arabella Millbank in the undergraduate.