The Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award
NEWS
We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award 2026 is Julian Hoffman for Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece (Elliot & Thompson, 2025). You can watch the ceremony here.
Announcing the result of this year’s competition on Tuesday 9 June in the presence of a large audience in the Great Hall of King’s College London, Sofka Zinovieff, chair of judges, said:
“The judges were thrilled by the range and quality of books entered for the Anglo-Hellenic League's Runciman Award. Choosing the seven shortlisted books was an epic task, deciding the winner a Herculean challenge. Lifelines by Julian Hoffman is a remarkable work of literature. Beautifully written, it transports the reader to a remote part of northern Greece and examines fascinating aspects of contemporary rural life and the natural world.”
The winner of the Award, Julian Hoffman, said: “I’m deeply honoured to receive the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award for Lifelines. Nearly a quarter of a century in the making, this story goes all the way back to the day that my wife, Julia, and I read a book about the Prespa lakes in northern Greece, one that inspired us to leave our London lives behind to try and put down roots there instead. Books can, and do, change lives. It’s been an enormous privilege to share some of the stories of Prespa – a place at the crossroads of three countries, where rich local cultures exist alongside pelican colonies and brown bears; where a pair of ancient lakes are receding due to climate change; and where bridges are slowly being built across borders. Prespa has not only fundamentally shaped my life, it has shown me how the lifelines of the world hold together the greater home of us all.”
Chair of the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Council, Professor Kevin Featherstone, said: “Julian Hoffman's Lifelines is a wonderful evocation of a life transplanted from London to the mountains of Northern Greece, and an ornament to the Runciman Award in its 40th anniversary year. The Council and members of the Anglo-Hellenic League extend their warmest congratulations to Julian and continued thanks to the Award's generous sponsors, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the Athanasios C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation.”
The Award ceremony was co-hosted by the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College London and the Anglo-Hellenic League.
Sofka Zinovieff reviewed the shortlisted books on behalf of the panel of judges and announced the winner.
The Award was presented by Ioannis Tsaousis, the Greek Ambassador to the UK. The winner gave an acceptance speech and introduced his winning book to the audience.
Author and screen writer Kallia Papadaki gave a keynote talk entitled “Being in Two Places at Once”.
Short addresses were also given by Professor Kevin Featherstone and Dr Jonathan Williams (the League) and Professor Gonda Van Steen (KCL).
The Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award is sponsored by the Athanasios C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation and the A.G. Leventis Foundation.
The Award
The Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award is awarded annually by the League for a work wholly or mainly about some aspect of Greece or the world of Hellenism, published in English in its first edition in the previous year.
The Award is named in honour of the late Sir Steven Runciman, Byzantine scholar and the League’s longest serving Chairman.
The Award is generously supported by the A.G. Leventis Foundation and the Athanasios C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation, to whom we are very grateful
Credit: Julian Anderson
History & Aims
The Award began in 1986 and since then various private sources, business and institutions with an interest in the promotion of Greek culture have provided generous sponsorship. The current joint sponsors are the Athanasios C. Laskaridis Charitable Foundation and the A. G. Leventis Foundation.
The award aims to stimulate interest in all aspects of Greek culture from ancient times, through Byzantium and the War of Independence to the present day; and to promote wider knowledge and understanding of Greece’s contribution to civilization and values.
Books covering all aspects of Greek culture are eligible. Works of fiction, poetry or drama, and translations from Greek literature are also eligible.
The Award aims particularly to reward and encourage good and accessible writing, following the fine example set by Sir Steven.
Judges for 2026
Sofka Zinovieff
Sofka Zinovieff, Chair of judges, was born in London and has lived for many years in Athens. She has written about Greece as an anthropologist (with a PhD from Cambridge), a journalist and an author. Her books include Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens, and the novel The House on Paradise Street. Athens Unpacked is her podcast documentary series. She is our longest-serving member of the panel, having joined us first for the 2021 competition. www.sofkazinovieff.com
Esther Eidinow
Esther Eidinow is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on ancient Greek culture, especially religion, magic and myth, with particular interest in interdisciplinary approaches. Her publications include Envy, Poison, and Death: Women on Trial in Classical Athens (Oxford, 2016), and Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience (Cambridge, 2022). She is series editor of Ancient Religion and Cognition (Cambridge) and Ancient Environments (Bloomsbury). She is our newest judge, joining the panel for the 2025 competition.
Vassiliki Kolocotroni
Vassiliki Kolocotroni is Professor in English Literature at the University of Glasgow. She works on international modernism, classical reception and travel, and is the co-editor of Hotel Modernisms, The Edinburgh Dictionary of Modernism, Women Writing Greece: Essays on Hellenism, Orientalism and Travel, and In the Country of the Moon: British Women Travelers to Greece. Vassiliki is General Editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism and Co-Principal Editor of the Journal of Greek Media and Culture. She joined the panel first for the 2023 competition.
Ingela Nilsson
Ingela Nilsson is Professor of Greek and Byzantine Studies at Uppsala University. She is interested in the long tradition of Greek literature, the processes of translation and adaptation that such a tradition entrals, and storytelling in general. Recent publications include Writer and Occasion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium (2021) and Critical Storytelling: Experiences of Power Abuse in Academia (ed. with J. Hanson, 2022). Nilsson is currently editor (with David Ricks) of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. She has served on the panel since the 2024 competition.
Oliver Thomas
Oliver Thomas is an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of The Agamemnon of Aeschylus: A Commentary for Students (Oxford 2011, with David Raeburn) and The Homeric Hymn to Hermes (Cambridge 2020), and numerous articles on ancient Greek literature. His current research focuses on ancient and medieval interpretation of the Iliad. He joined the panel first for the 2023 competition.
Rules and competition entry
The cycle of the competition is broadly the same every year:
by mid-October: the competition is launched. Publishers on our database are notified automatically by e-mail and are sent a copy of the rules of the competition and a form to nominate books. Information is also posted on the news pages of our website.
mid-December: the deadline for publishers’ nominations closes.
early January: the judges establish and announce their long list. The administrator requests publishers to send copies of long-listed books to the judges and administrator.
mid-April: the judges select and announce their short list.
mid-June: the chair of judges announces the winner at an award ceremony in London.
If you are a publisher, wish to be notified automatically about the competition and are not currently on our database, please send the following information to the Award Administrator: a) name of publisher, b) full name of official contact, c) one or, at most, two e-mail addresses of official contact(s).
Please note that we do not accept nominations by authors or hold authors’ details on our database, except when the author self-publishes.
We do not accept unsolicited copies of books for entry into the competition. Books must first be nominated by publishers, when the window for doing so is open (from the competition launch in October to the deadline for receipt of nominations in December).