The Polari Prize, the annual literary prize for LGBTQ+ literature, has announced that it will “pause” the prize this year following a controversy around the nomination of a book by Irish author John Boyne, who has previously expressed gender-critical views.
After the longlist for this year’s Book of the Year prize was published earlier this month and included Earth by John Boyne, more than half of this year’s nominated authors (all of whom are born or work in the UK and Ireland) withdrew their books from the longlist and two of the prize’s judges resigned. A petition calling on Polari to remove Boyne’s book from its longlist was organised by authors Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin and Emma van Straaten and signed by over 800 writers and publishing industry workers.
Boyne, who lives in Dublin, is best known for his best-selling 2006 novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which was turned into a film in 2008.
The controversy that led to the cancellation of this year’s prize stems largely from a birthday tribute Boyne wrote for JK Rowling in the Sunday Independent in late July. In it, he referred to himself as a “fellow Terf”. He called “grown women” who support the rights of children to access gender-affirming healthcare and of transpeople to use single-sex spaces “astonishingly complicit in their own erasure”. Terf is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist.
RM Block
The Polari Prize released a statement today announcing its decision to “pause” this year’s prize. It was doing this, it added, while the prize “increase[s] representation of trans and gender non-conforming judges on the panel for all awards and undertake[s] a governance and management review to include our aims and values and work to better support everyone within our LGBTQ+ Polari community”.
I came very close to the edge this week because of the endless harassment at the hands of both strangers and fellow writers
— John Boyne
The organisation also extended its “heartfelt apologies to everyone affected this year, for the disappointment and despair this has caused”. It stated that “Polari is not and has never been a trans exclusionary organisation. These are not our values and we condemn all forms of transphobia.”
The Polari Prize was founded in 2011 by journalist Paul Burston and the Polari Salon, which is a multi-award winning literary LGBTQ+ literary salon.
Last Thursday, Boyne posted a statement to his Bluesky and X social media accounts where he said: “I came very close to the edge this week because of the endless harassment at the hands of both strangers and fellow writers. I remained silent throughout but there’s been a few moments where I thought it would be easier not to go on. There’s really only so much abuse one person can take. However, I’m still here. Because I have too many books in me that I still want to write.”
On August 7th, the Polari Prize released a statement where it defended its decision to include Boyne on its longlist for Book of the Year. It said: “It is inevitable given the challenges we face and the diversity of the lived experience we now represent under the LGBTQ+ Polari umbrella, that even within our community, we can at times hold radically different positions on substantive issues. This is one of those times.”
Today’s statement on social media said the award “was supposed to be a celebration of exceptional LGBTQ+ literature [but] has been overshadowed by hurt and anger, which has been painful and distressing for all concerned and we apologise to everyone who has been affected”.
Polari added it would now “explore discussions about the tensions between the claims of freedom of expression and the need to create inclusive and supportive spaces in a world hostile to our trans community members and our community at large”.
