Tom Paulin has won the PEN Heaney Prize 2025 for Namanlagh, his first collection in over a decade. The £5,000 award was announced at a ceremony in the National Library of Ireland, Dublin, organised by English PEN, together with Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and the Estate of Seamus Heaney.
The PEN Heaney Prize, founded last year, recognises a single-author collection of poetry of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships.
The prize was judged by poets Sasha Dugdale, Seán Hewitt and Zaffar Kunial, with Chris Heaney as non-voting Chair and representing the Estate of Seamus Heaney.
The judging panel said: “Tom Paulin’s Namanlagh is beautiful and moving. One of the poems is called Spare Room and spareness is at work throughout – often the poems are a single stanza with relatively short lines. It’s as though nothing is to be falsely embellished and yet the language sings ‘like the real hard stuff’ – even through depression, as history echoes with the present and small resistances speak up."
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Paulin said: “I am hugely grateful to the judges, honoured and delighted to be awarded the PEN Heaney Prize which places social engagement at its core. It also embodies a cross-cultural alliance.
“The prize is particularly special to me because of its association with Seamus Heaney. His poems of sublime beauty have brought a depth of concern and an unfalteringly humane perspective to the conflict in Northern Ireland, and added immensely to the imaginative wealth of Ireland and the world beyond.”
Ruth Borthwick, Chair of English PEN, said: “We are delighted to celebrate Namanlagh – Tom Paulin’s 10th collection, and his first in more than 10 years – as the winner of this year’s PEN Heaney Prize. This major work reveals Paulin’s lifelong interest in questions of memory, place and conflict in new ways, and confirms what we’ve always known: that he is one of our era’s most significant politically engaged poets.
“Now in its second year, the PEN Heaney Prize realises a long-held ambition of English PEN and Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann. We are enormously grateful to the Estate of Seamus Heaney, Hawthornden Foundation, and our brilliant judging panel, to whom we owe both a remarkable shortlist and a truly deserving winner.”
Liz McManus, co-chair of Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann, said: “It is a great honour for Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann to be associated with English PEN and the Estate of Seamus Heaney in awarding this prestigious prize. Tom Paulin has already made a major literary contribution to the island of Ireland. Now Namanlagh stands as a work of art worthy of this award. We are delighted to send our warmest congratulations to him and to those writers who were shortlisted for the PEN Heaney Prize.”
Chris Heaney said: “On behalf of the Estate of Seamus Heaney, I’d like to send heartfelt congratulations to Tom Paulin – the winner of the PEN Heaney Prize 2025. In an extremely strong and accomplished field of contenders, Namanlagh stood out, with its unflinching look at matters both public and private, international and intimate. We are extremely grateful to our partners at English PEN and Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann for all their help and guidance and would also like to express our gratitude to Hawthornden Foundation for their continued support of the prize."
Also shortlisted for the prize were: Mirror Nation by Don Mee Choi; No One Will Know You Tomorrow by Najwan Darwish, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid; Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha; The Banquet by Stav Poleg; and Wellwater by Karen Solie.
Susannah Dickey won the inaugural prize for her debut collection, ISDAL, announced at a ceremony in Belfast last December. The ceremony moves between English PEN and Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann’s regions of work, and will take place in England in 2026.
Paulin was born in Leeds in 1949 but moved to Belfast, his mother’s birthplace, aged four, when his father became headmaster of Annadale grammar school, which Paulin later attended. After graduating from Oxford University, he became an academic and literary critic. In 1977 he won the Somerset Maugham Prize for his poetry collection A State of Justice.
He joined founders Brian Friel and Stephen Rea as a director of Field Day alongside Seamus Deane, Seamus Heaney and David Hammond. He established a reputation as a leading critic on the late-night BBC arts programmes The Late Show, Late Review and Newsnight Review.
