Top 10 Most Prestigious Literary Awards Around the World

The Giller Prize was founded in 1994 by Jack Rabinovitch in memory of his late wife, literary journalist Doris Giller, who passed away from cancer the year before. The award recognizes excellence in Canadian fiction, whether long novels or short stories, and includes an annual cash prize of $25,000 USD—one of the largest literary prizes in the country. The Giller Prize was introduced alongside the growing recognition of Canadian authors and literature both domestically and internationally.

Along with many other prestigious awards, The Giller Prize has played a significant role in fostering the growth of Canadian literary talent. To date, the award has distributed over $750,000 to Canadian writers from coast to coast. In 2005, the Giller Prize partnered with Scotiabank to establish the Scotiabank Giller Prize, marking the first-ever co-sponsorship of Canada’s richest literary award for novels. The prize money increased from $25,000 to $50,000, then to $70,000 in 2008, and reached $140,000 in 2014. Soheil Mosun Limited has been authorized to organize the annual Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s premier literary award for novels.

Renowned authors such as Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and Mordecai Richler have won the award, gaining global recognition. In 2016, Madeleine Thien won the prestigious prize for her novel “Do Not Say We Have Nothing.” Some Giller-winning works have also been translated and published in Vietnam, such as “Runaway” by Alice Munro and “The Time in Between” by David Bergen.

The Miles Franklin Award is Australia's most prestigious annual literary prize, recognizing the best novels and plays that portray Australian life. Established by Australian author Miles Franklin, the prize is valued at $60,000 USD. Charlotte Wood was recently awarded the prize for her novel “The Natural Way of Things” during the Miles Franklin presentation at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Other past winners include Tim Winton, Anna Funder, Steven Carroll, and Thea Astley.

The Miles Franklin Award is Australia’s oldest and most respected literary honor, showcasing the nation’s finest literary works. Miles Franklin, born in New South Wales, was known for her feminist themes in writing. Her most well-known book, “My Brilliant Career,” was written when she was still a teenager. In her will, she established the legacy of the prize, with a $50,000 USD annual award to recognize exceptional writers.

Founded in 1957 according to Franklin’s will, the Miles Franklin Award is given to the novel that demonstrates the highest literary value and depicts Australian life at any given point in history. The 2021 recipient of the Miles Franklin Award received $60,000 USD in prize money. The most recent winner, Anna Funder, impressed the judges with her debut novel, *All That I Am*, which explores the difficult choices made during World War II.

The Costa Book Award, previously known as the Whitbread Book Awards, has been awarded annually since 1971 to authors living in the UK and Ireland. The prize honors "the best books of the year" and is managed by the UK Booksellers Association. Initially funded by the British company Whitbread PLC, the award came under the ownership of Costa Coffee, a UK-based coffee chain and subsidiary of Whitbread, in 2006.

The Costa Book Award includes five categories: Poetry, Biography, Children’s Literature, First Novel, and Novel of the Year. The awards are not only given for literary excellence but also for works that are engaging and accessible, aiming to delight a wide audience. As a result, it is considered a more populist literary award compared to the Booker Prize. Each category winner receives £5,000, and the overall Book of the Year is selected from the five category winners and awarded £25,000. Authors do not need to be British or Irish, but they must have lived in the UK or Ireland for at least six months of the three years preceding the award.

Among the five category winners, one is selected as the Book of the Year. Notable authors who have won the Book of the Year include Ted Hughes for *Tales from Ovid* (1997) and *Birthday Letters* (1998), and Seamus Heaney for *The Spirit Level* (1996) and his translation of *Beowulf* (1999).

The National Book Award was established in 1950 and is managed by the National Book Foundation, a non-profit organization in the United States. Over the years, it has recognized literary giants like William Faulkner, Marianne Moore, Ralph Ellison, John Cheever, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Robert Lowell, Walker Percy, John Updike, Katherine Anne Porter, Norman Mailer, Lillian Hellman, Elizabeth Bishop, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, Flannery O'Connor, Adrienne Rich, Thomas Pynchon, Alice Walker, E. Annie Proulx, Jesmyn Ward, and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

While other categories have been included in the past, the National Book Award now honors outstanding American authors in the fields of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature. Each winner receives a bronze trophy and a cash prize of $10,000. Over the past 70 years, the National Book Foundation has celebrated nearly 2,600 books. A panel of judges selects a longlist of ten titles for each category, which is then narrowed down to five finalists, with the winner announced at the awards ceremony in the fall.

Each finalist receives $1,000, a medal, and a certificate from the judging panel. The winner receives $10,000 and a bronze sculpture. The National Book Awards ceremony is one of the most eagerly anticipated events for writers, publishers, and readers, as it highlights the best books of the year. Every year, the Foundation gathers 25 esteemed writers, translators, critics, librarians, and booksellers to judge the awards. For the Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature categories, only books written by U.S. citizens or approved foreign authors are considered.

The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is one of the most prestigious global literary awards, second only to the Nobel Prize. The award was founded in the United States in 1969 by Ivar Ivask, originally known as the International Book Award for Foreign Literature. Ivask, a later editor for *Books Abroad*, rebranded the award in 1976. It is primarily funded by Walter and Doris Neustadt from Ardmore, Oklahoma, with additional support from the University of Oklahoma. The winner receives a certificate, a silver eagle feather, and $50,000. This award recognizes significant works in the fields of drama, poetry, and fiction.

The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is awarded biennially and is funded by the University of Oklahoma and *World Literature Today* since 1970. It was the first international literary prize of this scope to originate in the United States, and it remains one of the few awards open to poets, novelists, and playwrights on equal terms. In 2003, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature was introduced to elevate the quality of children’s writing and promote works that contribute to the well-being of young readers. Winners of this prize receive a check for $35,000, a silver medal, and a certificate during a public ceremony at the University of Oklahoma, and their works are published in an upcoming edition of *World Literature Today*.

Only members of the Neustadt Prize and NSK jury can nominate candidates for the award. The jury members are annually appointed by the Executive Director of *World Literature Today* (who is the only permanent member) in consultation with the editors of *World Literature Today* and the President of the University of Oklahoma. Each jury member nominates one author for the award.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the UK’s most prestigious literary awards. Previously known as the Orange Prize for Fiction, it is awarded annually to a female author, regardless of nationality, for an outstanding novel published in English in the UK during the previous year. The idea for this award emerged in 1991, when the Booker Prize shortlisting process, which had no female authors among the six selected, prompted a group of literary professionals, both male and female, to create this award. The winner receives £30,000 and a bronze sculpture.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction was initially funded by an anonymous donor and the Orange Group, a telecommunications company that had long supported the arts. The award is open to novels written in English by women, regardless of their nationality, as long as the work was published in the UK in the preceding year. Translations are not eligible. The prize is managed by Booktrust, a UK literary charity, and was originally supported by Orange Group.

In 2005, the Orange Prize for New Writers, also exclusively for female authors, was established to celebrate first-time novelists and short story writers, but it was discontinued in 2010. The award continued under the name the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction until 2012 when Orange Group ended its sponsorship. Following this, the prize was renamed and sponsored by a group of private donors, becoming the Women’s Prize for Fiction. From 2014 to 2017, Baileys, a liquor brand, was the sole sponsor, and the award was known as the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. In 2018, with multiple sponsors joining in, the award reverted to its original name: The Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The Hugo Award is named in honor of Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. It recognizes the best science fiction or fantasy works, as well as achievements from the previous year. The Hugo Awards have been managed by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) since their inception, with the winners announced during the annual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). The award was first introduced in 1953, and its categories include Best Novel, Best Graphic Story, Best Fanzine, Best Professional Artist, Best Fancast, Best Dramatic Presentation, and Best Related Work.

The Hugo Award is one of the most prestigious awards in science fiction, presented annually since 1955. The awards are voted on by members of Worldcon, the organization that also manages the event. From January to March each year, committee members can nominate up to five people or works from the previous year in 15 categories. By early April, a shortlist of five finalists in each category is announced, and a final ballot is sent to the members of that year’s Worldcon. The winners are revealed during the Hugo Award ceremony at Worldcon, where they receive a unique trophy.

The Hugo Award is trademarked by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), an unincorporated literary organization that sponsors the annual Worldcon and the Hugo Awards. WSFS operates without paid staff and has no permanent organization except for the Trademark Protection Committee, which is responsible for managing and defending the Hugo Award trademarks, along with its Marketing Subcommittee that manages the official Hugo Award website.

The most prestigious literary honor is undoubtedly the Nobel Prize in Literature. Established in 1901, it is one of the six categories of the Nobel Prizes, awarded annually to a writer from any country for their outstanding literary work. The prize is awarded according to the will of Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel and is decided by the Swedish Academy. The winner is announced in early October each year. Since 2001, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature has been presented with a gold medal and a cash award of $1.4 million USD.

Some notable authors who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature in recent years include Alice Munro (2013), Patrick Modiano (2014), and Svetlana Alexievich (2015). In 2016, the award was given to American musician Bob Dylan for creating new poetic expressions within the tradition of American songwriting, a choice that left fans of author Haruki Murakami disappointed once again.

Since its inception in 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 113 times, though it has not been given on seven occasions: 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943. The youngest laureate is Rudyard Kipling, who was awarded in 1907 at the age of 41 for his work in The Jungle Book. The oldest laureate is Doris Lessing, who received the prize in 2007 at the age of 88. 16 women have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, with Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf being the first woman to win in 1909. Lagerlöf was awarded the prize five years before being elected to the Swedish Academy, the body responsible for selecting Nobel laureates.

The Pulitzer Prize is an esteemed American award presented in multiple categories, with journalism and literature being its most prominent fields. Established in 1917 by Joseph Pulitzer, a prominent American journalist and owner of the New York World, the Pulitzer Prize for Literature has been awarded annually by the president of Columbia University. Today, there are 21 categories, and winners receive a $10,000 cash prize along with a gold medal.

The award process has undergone several changes since its inception. The Pulitzer Prize Board has expanded the categories to 21 and included poetry, music, and photography while maintaining the founder’s original spirit. In 2006, online content was allowed in all 14 journalism categories, and in 2009, the competition was extended to online-only news organizations. By 2011, the award guidelines were further updated to encourage online and multimedia submissions, aiming to honor the best works regardless of format.

A significant change was the addition of a music category in 1943. The Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1997 was awarded to Wynton Marsalis for his work “Blood on the Fields.” Some notable Pulitzer-winning authors include Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea), and Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind). In 2016, Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel “The Sympathizer.”

The Man Booker Prize, previously known as the Booker McConnell Prize, is a prestigious British literary award presented annually for a full-length novel written in English. Initially, it was open only to authors from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Commonwealth. However, since 2014, the prize has been expanded to include English-language writers from around the world.

In 1992, the Booker Russian Novel Prize was introduced to honor contemporary Russian authors, aiming to broaden awareness of modern Russian literature and encourage the translation and publication of Russian novels outside of Russia. In 1999, the Russian Booker Prize was separated from other Booker awards. Every two years, the Man Booker International Prize, established in 2005, is awarded for lifetime achievement. Since 2016, it has been awarded annually to an author of a novel or short story collection translated into English.

In 2016, South Korean author Han Kang won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel *The Vegetarian*. The youngest winner of the Booker Prize is Eleanor Catton, who won in 2013 at the age of 28. The oldest winner was William Golding in 1980, who claimed the prize at age 69 for *Rites of Passage*. The longest book ever awarded the prize is *The Luminaries* (832 pages) by Eleanor Catton, while the shortest is *Offshore* (144 pages) by Penelope Fitzgerald, which won in 1979.