Press Release for 2022 LHP (En Version)
PRESS RELEASE
THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE FOR BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 2022
This year’s London Hellenic Prize was awarded to Caroline Vout for her seminal study of the body in antiquity, Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body (published by Profile/Wellcome).
Professor Vout’s book has received great plaudits from classicists, historians and art critics for its originality and wide range. The body is explored not only through its idealised aesthetic or devotional representations in ancient artworks, but also in its mundane humanity, with the basic needs, social requirements and aspirations of everyday life. From 7th century BC Greece to 4th century AD Rome, Vout’s work speaks authoritatively and consistently about the interactions between human life, social and political change and their expressions in various art forms and texts—often as attempts to sculpt visions of immortality, but also as expressions of the complex and flawed realities of the human body, its aesthetic pretensions and physical needs.
The award will be presented to Caroline Vout on November 10th, 2023 at the Hellenic Centre, London. Professor Oliver Taplin will introduce her work on the body in ancient Greece and Rome.
In addition to the winner, the 2022 Short List included five more candidates considered at great length by the Adjudicating Committee.
Smyrna in Flames by Homero Aridjis, a narrative of the 1922 destruction of Smyrna based on the author’s great-grandfather’s personal experiences, raised strong interest, especially since it marked the centenary of this tragic event in modern Greek history. Written originally in Mexican Spanish, translated into both English and Greek, a story of raw emotion and historical realism, Smyrna in Flames has spoken to a wide audience in Spanish, English and Greek.
The Improbable Heroine: Lela Karayanni and the British Secret Services in World War II Greece has brought to life the most inclusive, most well-researched biography of Greece’s famous resistance fighter who contributed so much to the British anti-German underground. Author Stylianos Perrakis sheds light into unknown aspects of anglo-hellenic wartime collaboration and raises Lela Karayianni to the highest pedestal of freedom-fighters.
The Folds of Olympus – Mountains in Ancient Greek and Roman Culture by Jason König sheds original light on the literary and historiographical importance of mythical landscapes and sites, with emphasis on the Olympian and the Parnassian classical and post-classical references.
Ephemeron is a collection of poetry by Fiona Benson revising, among others, the myth of the Minotaur, problematic son of Pasiphae and Minos, a child plagued by cranial deformities. Crafted with poetic invention and a wealth of classical details, this introspective poem explores the reality of myth while accepting myth as part of reality.
Finally, A.E. Stallings’ This Afterlife selects poems from almost twenty years and five collections of poetry, mostly with Hellenic themes, by a poet who has established herself in Athens and writes with a profound understanding of Greece’s classical and post-classical heritage. The reader is often impressed by Stallings’ technical expertise (her use of the Spenserian sonnet, for example, or her internal rhymes that echo throughout long stanzas). The subject-matters of her eloquent poems act as a bridge between English and Greek cultures.