Jane Hiddleston, Professor of Literatures in French, and Nikolaj Lübecker, Professor of French and Film Studies, have been shortlisted for the prestigious R. Gapper book prize. The annual prize is awarded for a book in the field of French studies authored by a UK-based scholar, commending critical and scholarly distinction and impact on the wider critical debate.

Jane has been nominated for her book Frantz Fanon: Literature and Invention (Legenda, 2022), which investigates the work of Martinique-born psychiatrist and political thinker Frantz Fanon. In her book, Jane argues that Fanon, a key anticolonial thinker, helps us reflect upon what literature can do in the face of ongoing inequality and injustice.

In his book Twenty-First-Century Symbolism (Liverpool University Press, 2022), also shortlisted for the prize, Nikolaj argues that Verlaine, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé herald a view of human subjectivity that is appropriate for the modern day: we cannot be separated from the worlds in which we live and evolve.