Imagine being a school pupil charged with awarding a prize to a contemporary novelist. That is the idea behind the Schools' Laureate.
For this first year of the prize, the four shortlisted books were Jonathan Buckley’s One Boat, Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp, translated by Deepa Bashti, Anne Serre’s A Leopard-Skin Hat, translated by Mark Hutchinson and Ledia Xhoga’s Misinterpretation. During the course of the term, the pupils in participating schools read and discussed the books and chose two representatives to come up to Oxford and take part in the judging panel.
In 2026, the judges were drawn from Bolton School, Bolton, Lancs; Camden School for Girls, London; Greenford High School, Ealing; Friends’ School, Lisburn, Northern Ireland; The Grey Coat Hospital, London and North London Collegiate School.
Baroness (Shami) Chakrabarti CBE PC chaired the prize. The pupils discussed each of the books in turn before voting for the winner. Shami Chakrabarti remarked on their careful use of words, the acuity of their analyses, the courtesy of their exchanges, their capacity to stand up for their ideas but also listen to other people’s suggestions and, at time, change their minds.
At the ceremony, held in Blackwell Hall, pupils introduced each of the shortlisted books in turn in thoughtful brief presentations. The announcement of the laureate was preceded by a personal message from H.M. Queen Camilla who saluted ‘a brilliant initiative to create “a book prize awarded by school pupils”’ and looked forward to hearing who the winner was. The pupils chose Ledia Xhoga’s Misinterpretation, commenting on the interesting use of an unreliable narrator and the cross-cultural aspects of the main characters’ lives.
Professor Catriona Seth FBA of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, who created the prize with the support of the Hawthornden Foundation, said: “I am delighted we have managed to get this off the ground. The pupils and their teachers have been incredible. It is such a joy to see how much pleasure they have derived from reading the shortlisted books.”