New RSL Honorary Fellow SuAndi also awarded the Benson Medal
We are thrilled to announce that our SussedBlackWoman project partner SuAndi has been doubly acknowledged by the Royal Society of Literature. In addition to being inaugurated in July 2024 as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, SuAndi follows in the footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien, Wole Soyinka, Margaret Busby and other literary greats by being awarded the RSL's prestigious Benson Medal for outstanding contribution to literature.
SuAndi: New Honorary Fellow and Benson Medallist
Congratulations to SuAndi - our recent collaborative partner - who has been highly recognised by the Royal Society of Literature in their round of annual appointments and awards this year. On 11 July 2024, at the Garden Museum, London, the RSL first announced that SuAndi had been appointed an Honorary Fellow for her ‘significant contribution to the advancement of literature in the UK’, before later announcing that she was had also been awarded the Benson Medal for ‘outstanding services to literature across a whole career.’
SuAndi joined 12 other new Honorary Fellows who were inaugurated into the RSL by signing their name into the organisation’s roll book, using a pen of a prominent writer of their choice. SuAndi opted to sign her name using Andrea Levy’s pen.
Watch SuAndi receiving her award and listen to her speech at the RSL’s YouTube channel (at the 25.58 mark):
The Royal Society of Literature’s Benson Medal
The Benson Medal was founded in 1916 by A.C. Benson, scholar, author and RSL Fellow, ‘in respect of meritorious works in poetry, fiction, history and belles lettres’. The medal honours a whole career rather than a single work, and has been awarded several times to writers in other languages. It is also awarded those who are not writers, but who have done conspicuous service to literature. Some of its notable recipients include J.R,R. Tolkien, Philip Larkin, E.M. Forster, Wole Soyinka, Anita Desai and Margaret Busby. Each medal - newly designed by artist Linda Crook in 2020 - incorporates elements representing the books, the reader, the writer and the passage of time, and is engraved with the recipient’s name. Apparently it is very heavy!
SuAndi’s accolades beyond the RSL
It will be no surprise to anyone who has visited our digital resource SussedBlackWoman which shares SuAndi’s life and work in her own words to learn why she was doubly recognised by the RSL. Over her career as a writer, poet, performer, librettist and arts practitioner - which includes her longstanding tenure as the Freelance Cultural Director of the National Black Arts Alliance - she has not only created an acclaimed and wide-ranging body of written work, but has supported and championed the work of global Black cultures and creatives.
SuAndi’s work and contribution to the arts sector has also been widely recognised outside of the RSL. In addition to receiving an OBE, a Doctor of Arts from Manchester Metropolitan University and a Doctor of Letters degree from Lancaster University, her awards include the Windrush Inspirational Award, Winston Churchill Fellowship, Hope & Inspiration Award for Work Supporting Black History Month, NESTA Dream Time Fellowship, Big Issue in the North Individual Inspirational Award and the MBMEN Lifetime Award. Her monodrama, The Story of M, was added to the EdExcel A Level English Literature curriculum in 2017. In 2023 she was the recipient of the Manchester Culture Special Recognition Award.
Carcanet Press will publish a collection by SuAndi in 2025.
You can read more about SuAndi’s achievements in the Arts section of SussedBlackWoman.
About the SussedBlackWoman digital resource
Born and raised in Manchester, SuAndi is the daughter of a Liverpool Irish mother and a Nigerian Ijaw father. SussedBlackWoman, our digital resource created in collaboration with SuAndi, shares her life and work in her own words. Though of interest to all, it has been designed in particular to provide additional support to our Gen Z audience (ages 13-21) who are increasingly studying SuAndi’s monodrama The Story of M at school and university since it has been added to the EdExcel English ‘A’ Level curriculum.
SussedBlackWoman was funded by the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) and the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) as part of the ‘New Stories, New Audiences’ programme.
Learn more
Read about and visit our SussedBlackWoman resource, which includes poetry and audio clips as well as outputs from our SussedBlackWoman GenZ workshops
Visit our entry on The Story of M at our Mixed Race Irish in Britain, 1700-2000 digital exhibition