The 2023 Observer / Burgess Prize has a winner
The winner of the 2023 Observer / Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism is En Liang Khong. His review of Tanoa Sasraku’s exhibition of Terratypes wins him the first prize of £3,000 and publication in the Observer newspaper.
The £500 runner-up accolades go to Cerise Louisa Andrews, who wrote about the V&A’s exploration of Korean ‘Hallyu’ pop culture, and Luke Hallam, whose subject was The Backstreets, the first Uyghur novel in English.
The result was announced in a glittering live ceremony in London, which featured all six shortlistees, judges from the Observer and the Burgess Foundation, and a specially invited audience. The result was also announced in a video broadcast from Anthony Burgess’s Typewriters exhibition in Manchester.
The judges were Fiona Maddocks and Sarah Donaldson from the Observer, and Andrew Biswell from the Burgess Foundation.
The Prize is in its tenth year, and this year saw the announcement of the first ever longlist. You can see details of the shortlist and longlist here. Last year’s most successful entrants reviewed a display of industry-themed photographs, a dungeons and dragons web series, and a Shakespeare-themed lockdown play.
After receiving his first prize, En Liang Khong tweeted: “Thrilled to win the Observer/Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism last night! And congratulations to all my fellow shortlistees.”
En’s winning review is scheduled to feature in the Observer on Sunday March 5, with the runners-up pieces also being published on their website.
