Albanian author Lea Ypi named winner of £10,000 RSL Ondaatje Prize

Lea Ypi has been named the winner of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) Ondaatje Prize.

The Albanian author picked up a £10,000 prize for her 2021 novel Free, a coming-of-age memoir set amid political upheaval.

The prize is awarded to an outstanding work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that “best evokes the spirit of a place,” according to organisers.

Speaking after receiving the prize, Ypi said she hoped the book would “make people more sensitive to the realities” of a country like Albania and provoke interest in its history.

“This started as a book about concepts and so it is incredible to receive this prize for the best book that evokes the spirit of a place,” she said.

“It goes to show that concepts and places are connected to each other.

“It is really important to me because the place whose spirit is evoked is Albania, a place people don’t usually think about – it’s not somewhere that makes headlines unless there is something problematic happening.

“I hope that it will make people have an interest in the history of this country, which is also a history of universal significance… and make people more sensitive to the realities that should be paid attention to, regardless of whether there is a recognised crisis in a place or not.”

Ypi fended off competition from five other authors – Sathnam Sanghera, AK Blakemore, Cal Flyn, Yousif M Qasmiyeh, and Elif Shafak.

She was announced as the winner and presented with the prize by RSL president emeritus Colin Thubron at an event on Wednesday evening held at Two Temple Place, in London.

The competition’s judges, Sandeep Parmar, Patrice Lawrence and Philippe Sands, said Ypi was a “master at the juxtaposition (between) grand and personal narratives.”

“Reading and re-reading Lea Ypi’s Free we felt very strongly that the book’s central concerns – politics, personal history, the very meaning of freedom – spoke so resonantly to our lived moment,” they said.

“Ypi’s both darkly humorous and deeply serious work made us reflect forcefully on the need for truthfulness about the stories we are told and how we negotiate our own lives within them.”

The author is also professor of political theory at the London School of Economics, and political science and adjunct professor in philosophy at the Australian National University.

Her work has previously been recognised with several prizes such as the British Academy Prize for Excellence in Political Science and the Leverhulme Prize for Outstanding Research Achievement.