The winner of this year’s Observer / Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism was announced during an awards ceremony at King’s Place, London, on Thursday 25th February – which would have been Anthony Burgess’s 99th birthday.

The prize, now in its fourth year, received an unprecedented number of entries from emerging and established writers from around the world, covering a range of literature, cinema, music, and visual arts topics.

The seven shortlisted pieces were selected by a distinguished panel of judges chaired by the novelist and playwright Kate Mosse and including the writers Alexandra Harris and Ruth Scurr, and associate editor of the Observer newspaper Robert McCrum.

We are delighted to reveal that the winner was Leah Broad, for her outstanding work Alternative Sibelius: Pia Freund and Ismo Eskelinen perform Sibelius’s songs. Leah receives a £2,000 prize, trophy and will have her entry published in the Observer.

The two runners-up were Ed Cripps, for The South Bank Show: Paul Greengrass and Melvyn Bragg and Iris Veysey, for Candida Höfer’s Memory at Ben Brown Fine Arts.

The other shortlisted entries were Tom Evans for Under The Paving Stones, the What? The Rebellious Noir of Anderson’s Inherent Vice, Tom Startup for The Philosopher As Curator: A Short Enquiry Into Human Freedom by John Gray, Madeline Pettit for Blackpool Rock: Blur at the Winter Gardens and Scott Wilson for The Porcupine And The Goddess: The Institute of Sexology at the Wellcome Collection.

Next year’s Observer / Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism will open for entries on 3 April 2016. Details will be announced via our website, social media and the press. 

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