Footnote Press, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK, and Counterpoints Arts, the leading national organisation in the field of arts, migration and cultural change, have today announced the first Footnote x Counterpoints Prize for Fiction.
Submission details can be found here.
The Footnote x Counterpoints Prize celebrates writers from refugee and migrant backgrounds telling stories centred around themes of displacement, courage and belonging. This is the second time that Footnote Press and Counterpoints Arts have partnered to run the Prize and the first time that it will focus on fiction.
The Prize is worth £15,000 to the winner and includes a £7,500 cash prize as well as a publication agreement with Footnote Press with an advance of a further £7,500. The Prize is also supported by the Southbank Centre, which will host an event in May 2026 at which five shortlisted authors will be invited to read and discuss their work.
The Footnote x Counterpoints Prize will be judged by the acclaimed writer Dina Nayeri, Waterstones’ Head of Books Bea Carvalho, Footnote Press Commissioning Editor Serena Arthur, and Director and Co-Founder of Counterpoints Arts Almir Koldzic.
Submissions must consist of a sample of 8,000 to 10,000 words, a detailed synopsis of a minimum of 1,500 words, an author bio and video, and the answers to a few further questions about the author and their proposed novel. The submissions window will be open from November 27th 2025 until February 13th 2026, with a shortlist chosen in May and the winner announced to coincide with Refugee Week in June 2026.
Serena Arthur, Commissioning Editor at Footnote Press, said: “We at Footnote Press and Bonnier Books UK are delighted to continue with the second year of the Footnote x Counterpoints Prize, which seeks to find new talent from a migrant or refugee background. The prize is still centred around themes that are so core to both Footnote’s ethos and list, but I’m especially excited to be turning to fiction this time around. Almir and the Counterpoints team continue to bring huge passion and enthusiasm and have been brilliant partners to bring our vision for this year’s prize to life.”
Almir Koldzic, Director and Co-Founder of Counterpoints Arts, said: “We are so proud to be launching the next iteration of the Footnote x Counterpoints Prize, this year dedicated to celebrating exceptional works of fiction by writers from refugee and migrant backgrounds. In a time marked by deepening divisions and intolerance, the prize feels especially necessary and urgent. We hope it will help us amplify remarkable new literary voices and lived experiences of displacement, bringing us fresh perspectives and questions about our society today and in the future.”
Bea Carvalho, Head of Books at Waterstones, said: “The Footnote x Counterpoints Prize is a fantastic and much needed initiative: I’m proud to be joining the judging team and can’t wait to discover what I’m sure will be a treasure trove of talented new writers whose work, like the best of fiction, will open new perspectives and allow us to discover the world through a different lens.”
The winner of the first Footnote x Counterpoints Prize – which was for non-fiction, rather than fiction – was Sabrin Hasbun, whose winning book Crossing: A love story between Italy and Palestine was published by Footnote Press in May 2025. A beautiful and compelling family memoir, Crossing tells the love story between Sabrin’s Palestinian father and Italian mother, and the life of her half-Italian, half-Palestinian family from the 1960s to 2020. Described as ‘a tale of love and resistance… [that] vividly conveys what it is like to live under constant occupation’ (the Observer), Crossing was widely praised by authors including Elif Shafak and Philippe Sands.
Anyone from a refugee or migrant background, agented or unagented, is eligible to submit an entry for the Footnote x Counterpoints Prize if they are a resident of the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland. Full terms and conditions can be found here.
