The poet Grace Nichols has been named the winner of the 2026 Royal Society of Literature Pioneer prize, a £10,000 award that recognises women writers over 60 who broke through at a time when the literary world was less open to them.

Nichols, 76, who was born in Guyana and moved to the UK in 1977, made her name with I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, which took the Commonwealth poetry prize in 1983, and The Fat Black Woman’s Poems, a collection published the following year. Her poems have been GCSE set texts for decades, and she has written extensively for children as well as adults.

The Pioneer prize was established last year by the then president of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL), Bernardine Evaristo, who donated the £100,000 she received from the 2025 Women’s prize outstanding contribution award to fund it for 10 years. The award will rotate between forms each year, and this year was given for poetry.…