Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, one of the Manchester Multilingual City Poets, has been awarded a Society of Authors Somerset Maugham Award 2025 at the 18th June ceremony.

Charlotte won for her debut collection Food for the Dead (Jonathan Cape, Vintage). The other winners were Jo Hamya, Ashani Lewis and Jason Okundaye.

The annual Society of Authors’ Awards recognises the best and most promising literary voices of the year. The Somerset Maugham Awards are given for a published work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry.

Charlotte is a poet of both British and Ukrainian heritage. Her debut collection Food for the Dead, published by Jonathan Cape in 2024, was also a winner of an Eric Gregory Award (2023) and the Laurel Prize for Best First Collection UK (2024).

Photo credit to David Oates.