Queer cartoonist David Shenton’s autobiographical graphic novel Forty Lies has been longlisted for the 2024 Polari Book Prize for LGBTQIA+ literature in the UK. The book, published by Knockabout, is a compilation of around forty personal stories and recollections from across the 70-year-old author’s life.
The judges for the 2024 Polari Book Prize include last year’s winning author Julia Armfield, literary critic Suzi Feay, cultural sector leader Chris Gribble, author and comedian VG Lee, with author and Polari founder Paul Burston serving as chair. Shortlists for the award will be announced in September, with the winner declared at a November 29 ceremony in The British Library, London. The winning author will receive £2,000 (~$2,500).
The synopsis for Forty Lies describes the book:
“This anagram of a book, is a vaguely chronological patchwork of forty(ish) personal stories, that don’t bear too much factual scrutiny, yet are as real and honest as need be, following the trials of Coming Out, the Age of Consent, family rejection, dodgy boyfriends, shaky career prospects, police swoops, the enemy without, queer bashers, the stern presence of HIV/AIDS, the loathsome Section 28,the friends, the outrage and outrageous, the fun, the sex, the scene, Love, Equal Marriage and bereavement… This is my History, it is the history of every 70 year old gay man in Britain today. FORTY LIES=LIFE STORY. Basically, a Comic Book, with knitting patterns.”
David Shenton is a British cartoonist and illustrator whose work has predominantly focused around queerness and queer issues. He has been producing comics since the 1970s and was initially published in periodicals Gay News, Him, and Capital Gay. He has contributed to Fantagraphic’s 2012 anthology No Straight Lines: Forty Decades of Queer Comics – as well as 1987’s Strip AIDS from Willyprods/Small Time Ink and 1988’s AARGH! (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia) from Mad Love.
Founded in 2007, Polari is a UK-based award-winning LGBTQIA+ literary salon of writers and performers. Since 2011 Polari has produced their own annual literary awards – the longest running of which is the Polari First Book Prize for debut authors. It’s other two awards are the broader Polari Book Prize in 2019, and the biannual Polari Children’s/Young Adult Prize in 2022.
Comics have yet to make a firm presence in the Polari prizes, but some inroads have been made: Steven Appleby’s Dragman – published 2020 by Jonathan Cape in UK and Metropolitan Books in US – was shortlisted for the Polari Prize in 2021; and Kate Charlesworth’s Sensible Footwear: A Girls Guide – a graphic guide to lesbian and queer history 1950-2020 (Myriad Editions, 2019) made the 2020 First Book Prize shortlist. None have thus far made shortlist in the Polari Children’s/YA Prize.
