Poet Grace Nichols wins 10000 pound Royal Society of Literature Pioneer prize

The poet Grace Nichols has won the 2026 Royal Society of Literature Pioneer prize, as reported by The Guardian Books. The award comes with a 10,000 pound prize money sum and honours women writers over 60 who broke through when the literary landscape was less accessible to them. [1]

The Guardian Books reported that the 76-year-old writer was born in Guyana and relocated to the United Kingdom in 1977. She initially gained widespread recognition with her work I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, which claimed the Commonwealth poetry prize in 1983, alongside her work The Fat Black Woman's Poems. [1]

Before moving to Britain, Nichols worked as a teacher and journalist in Guyana. She was later announced as the winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in December 2021. Her debut collection, I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, earned acclaim for its themes of historical memory and cultural displacement. [3][5]

Her subsequent literary works include Sunris, which won the Guyana Poetry Prize in 1996, and Startling the Flying Fish in 2006. She also wrote the 1986 novel Whole of a Morning Sky, set against political upheaval in Guyana, as well as children's collections including Come on into My Tropical Garden in 1988 and Give Yourself a Hug in 1994. [5]