The winners! The HWA Crown Awards 2023

We’re delighted to announce the winners of the 2023 HWA Crown Awards, celebrating the best in recent historical writing, fiction and non-fiction!

The winners of the Gold Crown for fiction, the Non-fiction Crown and the Debut Crown were revealed on Wednesday, 22 November at an awards party at Crypt on the Green in Clerkenwell.

We’d like to thank the authors and publishers for their submissions. It was exciting and heartening to see historical writing in such good shape, and in so many diverse forms. We’re also extremely grateful to this year’s judges for their commitment and hard work.

The winners of the HWA Gold, Non-fiction and Debut Crown Awards, out of a very strong field, are:

The HWA Gold Crown Award 2023

The shortlisted books for the Gold Crown were:

River Spirit by Leila Aboulela (Saqi)

The Colour Storm by Damien Dibben (Michael Joseph)

The Weather Woman by Sally Gardner (Head of Zeus)

The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Picador)

The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry (Riverrun)

Dark Earth by Rebecca Stott (4th Estate)

The winner of the 2023 Gold Crown Award

The Colour Storm by Damien Dibben

Emma Darwin, who chaired the Gold Crown judges, says: “The Colour Storm is a richly imagined exploration of what drives a great artist, and how even the mysterious and fascinating genius Giorgione must struggle to survive in the ruthless world of Rennaissance Venice.”

The judges for the 2023 Gold Crown Award were Emma Darwin (chair), Theodore Brun, Essie Fox, Catherine Hokin, Miranda Malins, Amy McElroy and Sunny Singh.

The HWA Non-fiction Crown Award 2023

The shortlisted books for the Non-fiction Crown were:

The Siege of Loyalty House by Jessie Childs (The Bodley Head)

Woman’s Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi by Sarah Clegg (Head of Zeus)

Courting India by Nandini Das (Bloomsbury)

The Captain’s Apprentice by Caroline Davison (Chatto & Windus)

Super-Infinite by Katherine Rundell (Faber)

The Holocaust: An Unfinished History by Dan Stone (Penguin)

The winner of the 2023 Non-fiction Crown Award

The Captain’s Apprentice by Caroline Davison

Jagjeet Lally, chair of the Non-fiction judges, says: “Davison’s evocative and richly layered history weaves between the incredibly local and the global, crossing the waters from the past to the present. Centred on a dark and horrible tragedy, it’s the story of a folk song, but also much more than that. The Captain’s Apprentice melds many pasts, not least those of countless working-class men, women, and children, and their middle-class interlocutors, meanwhile asking us what it means to create and be creative, to seek to ‘preserve’, to try to ‘remember’, and to ‘forget’.”

The judges for the 2023 Non-fiction Crown Award were Jagjeet Lally (chair), Jad Adams, Sushma Jansari, Jacqueline Riding and Ros Taylor.

The HWA Debut Crown Award 2023

The shortlisted books for the Debut Crown were:

Clytemnestra  by Costanza Casati (Michael Joseph)

Lessons in Chemistry  by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday Books)

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho  by Paterson Joseph (Dialogue Books)

The Secrets of Hartwood Hall  by Katie Lumsden (Michael Joseph)

Death and the Conjuror  by Tom Mead (Head of Zeus)

The Circus Train  by Amita Parikh (Sphere)

The winner of the 2023 Debut Crown Award

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho  by Paterson Joseph

Ayo Onatade, chair of the Debut Crown judges, finds it “an utterly captivating and haunting historical novel, eloquently written, that entranced the judges. Georgian London and Black Britain seen through a fresh pair of eyes — warts and all.”

The judges for the 2023 Debut Crown Award were Ayo Onatade (chair), Dan Bassett and Susan Heads.

Commenting on the 2023 awards, HWA Chair Imogen Robertson says: “It’s a pleasure to see the Crown Awards celebrating such a brilliant range of books, and our thanks to the judges for finding such worthy winners.

“Every longlisted and shortlisted book is a gem, and we’d like to thank the authors, agents and publishers for sharing them with us and all fans of historical writing.”

Our thanks to the three teams of judges, who have worked so hard reading the submitted books and tackling the difficult task of choosing just one winner in each category.

A series of interviews with Crown Award-winning and shortlisted authors will begin in Historia in December.

And you can win all six of the books in each of the shortlists in our three Historia giveaways, held in December, January and February.

The awards party

We announced the awards at a party held to celebrate the HWA Crown Awards and HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition winners.

The first awards given were for the 2023 HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition.
Here’s Betty Moxon of the Dorothy Dunnett Society welcoming the winning, highly commended and shortlisted authors to the stage

L–R: Jo Tiddy, winner of the 2023 HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition; Anne Byrne and Judith Wilson, highly commended; Louise Morrish, Josie Turner and Cheryl Burman, shortlisted

The 2023 short story anthology with all six shortlisted stories.
It’s available as a paperback and an ebook

Then it was on to the 2023 HWA Crown Awards, starting with the Debut Crown Award.
Ayo Onatade, chair of the judging panel, announcing the winning book, The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho  by Paterson Joseph

Sharmaine Lovegrove, MD of Paterson’s publisher, Dialogue Books, accepts the award on his behalf.
Paterson was in the middle of the Atlantic in a bit of a rough sea and so had to miss the awards party

Next, the HWA Non-fiction Crown.
Jagjeet Lally, chair of the the judges, announces the winning book, The Captain’s Apprentice by Caroline Davison

Caroline with her award

Finally, the HWA Gold Crown.
Emma Darwin, chair of the judges, announces the winner, The Colour Storm by Damian Dibben

Damian accepting his award

HWA Chair Imogen Robertson looking after the awards. None of this would be possible without her hard work and dedication

A tense moment waiting for an award to be announced

And delighted reactions

Then it was time to relax and enjoy the company of fellow writers

Jim Burge (second from the left), Katie Lumsden (shortlisted for the Debut Crown for The Secrets of Hartwood Hall, centre), Judith Wilson (to Katie’s right)