The Hubert Butler Essay Prize is a splendid thing, both a tribute to one of the very greatest exponents of the form, and a venture aimed at ensuring the continued health and vivacity of the form itself. Montaigne would approve, and so would Orwell. Write on!

A Way of Happening, a Mouth: On the Survival of High Culture in Catastrophic Times

“La poesia non fa accadere nulla”  By Edoardo Coppi

"This is a beautiful, subtle, learned and timely essay. Somewhere, Hubert Butler is on his feet  applauding. As Edoardo Coppi so elegantly and persuasively argues, the nothing that poetry makes happen is not nothing, but a something of the highest significance."

John Banville, Honorary Patron of the Hubert Butler Essay Prize. 

Roy Foster’s introduction to this year's essay, together with Edoardo Coppi's biography and remarks on winning the prize can be read here.

Antony Farrell's speech from this year's award.