Nick Hern Books playwright Winsome Pinnock has won a Windham-Campbell Prize for drama in recognition of 'a singular voice in world theater'.

The award, which is one of the world's richest, celebrates eight writers each year for their achievements in fiction, non fiction, poetry and drama. In their citation for the 2022 Prizes, the judges said that Pinnock's plays 'have established her as both poet and myth-maker, committed to taking formal risks and to asking difficult questions about the role of art in shaping cultures and institutions'.

'Her most recent play, Rockets and Blue Lights (2018), places at its center one of the nineteenth century's most famous paintings: J. M. W. Turner's "The Slave Ship". Moving between several sets of characters and ranging from the 1800s to the present, this intricately plotted drama compels us to confront the horrors of our shared past. It does so with compassion and wit, never once compromising Pinnock's vision of theater as the communal creation of new, stranger, and perhaps truer histories.'

Previous recipients of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama include NHB playwrights Helen Edmundson, debbie tucker green, Aleasha Harris, Lucas Hnath, Sam Holcroft, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Young Jean Lee and Suzan-Lori Parks.

Photo by Geraint Hill.