Alice Oswald wins Warwick Prize for Writing

A massive congratulations to Alice Oswald who has become the first poet to win the £25,000 Warwick Prize for Writing!

Awarded at the Wallace Collection in London last night, Professor Ian Sansom, chair of the judges for the Warwick prize, said: "It was a unanimous decision to award the Warwick prize for writing 2013 to Memorial: this is a book that forges its own unique medium of expression. Memorial is a book that looks to the present as well as the past, which combines the personal with the political, and my fellow judges and I were thrilled by its imaginative and intellectual ambition."

Alice said she was "surprised and grateful, both to the judges and to Homer", on winning the prize. Memorial, published in 2011 to ecstatic reviews, retells Homer's epic poem, stripping back the narrative to focus on Homer's extended similes and the lives of the fallen foot soldiers.

The Warwick Prize for Writing was founded in 2009 and is run by the University of Warwick. In addition to the £25,000 monetary prize, Alice will have the opportunity to take up a short placement at the university.