ABOUT THE PRIZE

Created in 2022 by Dr. Patricia Danaher, the Harvardwood Literary Prize for Biography offers a prize of $100,000. to the winner who is selected by a distinguished jury of Harvard alumni. It will stand alongside comparable literary awards such as the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize and the Impac Prize. 

The HLP longlist will be compiled globally in collaboration with libraries, booksellers, book clubs, and publishers. The panel will review all submissions from books published within the calendar year and determine a longlist in September, reflecting the most popular biographies bought or borrowed that year.

The short list of finalists will be determined by our panel of esteemed judges, all Harvard-alumni, each of whom has made a significant contribution to the literary or cultural world. The shortlist of finalists will be announced in October, and the first-place winner will be announced in November at a gala event in New York City. The winner will receive $100,000., presented at the gala event attended by the judges and the winner.

It is anticipated that this recognition will result in much publicity and increased book sales revenue for the winner and the shortlisted authors, helping the writers, publishers, retailers, and gift buyers just in time for holiday shopping. That and the prize presentation will insure that winning the Harvardwood Literary Prize will solidify the name of the author and the publisher in the eyes of the book-buying and library-using members of the public.

 There is a strong tradition in Europe of such generous prizes for authors, but less so in the US. While the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award are very prestigious in their own right, there are no comparably generous financial rewards for authors in the US. The Harvardwood Literary Prize marks a bold new initiative that supports authors, publishers, and readers alike in bringing awareness of important work in the genre to a wider audience.