The TLS Ackerley Prize is awarded annually to a literary autobiography of excellence, written by an author of British nationality and published during the preceding year. The winner receives £4,000.
The prize was established by Nancy West, née Ackerley, sister of English author and editor J. R. Ackerley, and was first awarded in 1982.
The prize is judged by the trustees of the J. R. Ackerley Trust; biographer and historian Peter Parker (Chair), the biographer and critic Claire Harman, and the writer and editor Michael Caines.[1] There is no formal submission process for the award — judges simply "call in" books to be added to their longlist.[2]
Former judges include the novelist Francis King, the biographer Michael Holroyd, the editor of Ackerley’s letters, Neville Braybrooke, food writer and historian Colin Spencer, the biographer and historian Richard Davenport-Hines and the novelist and short story writer Georgina Hammick.
In 2023, the Prize’s long partnership with English PEN, when it was known as the PEN Ackerley Prize, came to an end, and it reverted to its original name of the Ackerley Prize.
In 2024, the Prize formed a partnership with the Times Literary Supplement and was renamed the TLS Ackerley Prize.[3]