Travel writers are bridge builders, venturing out into the world to understand different peoples, cultures and times. Empathy lies at the heart of their work, and the fundamental belief that through better understanding others we can better know ourselves.
The second, annual £10,000 Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing will be awarded in 2027 to a published British or European author whose work encourages understanding between peoples and across societies.
As well as the boldness of the author’s ambition and the quality of writing, emphasis will be placed on books that enable readers to cross borders and so to draw together – on the page at least – our divided worlds.
Travel - and hence travel writing - are “fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
Mark Twain
Our Judges
Sara Wheeler
Sara Wheeler is an award-winning travel writer and bestselling biographer whose 11 books include Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard and Glowing Still: A Woman’s Life on the Road. Her authorised biography of Jan Morris, Jan Morris: A Life, was published by Faber in April 2026.
Sara is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a contributing editor of the Literary Review and a regular voice on the radio.
Justin Marozzi
Justin Marozzi is an award-winning historian, travel writer and journalist. He is the author of nine books, including Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World, shortlisted for the 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize, and Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood, the winner of the Royal Society of Literature’s 2015 Ondaatje Prize.
A former Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society, Justin is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and is currently researching a history of the Hashemites.
Emma Paterson
Emma Paterson joined Aitken Alexander Associates in 2018 after five years at Rogers, Coleridge & White. Before that, she worked at The Wylie Agency. She was made a Director of Aitken Alexander and became a member of the Booker Prize Foundation Advisory Committee in 2020. In 2023, she was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Emma represents writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, among them a number of bestselling and prize-winning authors. Her list includes Bernardine Evaristo, Shon Faye, Natasha Brown, Claire Kilroy, Ash Sarkar, Mona Chalabi, Sanam Mahloudji, Sam Knight, Chris Power, Emma Dabiri and Victoria Adukwei Bulley.