Bodley’s Librarian, Richard Ovenden of the Bodleian Libraries, with Isabel Allende, February 12, at her Bodley Medal ceremony, the Morgan Library and Museum. Image: Bodleian Libraries
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘The Republic of Letters’
Amid the annual late-winter blizzard of book and publishing awards, the Chilean-American author Isabel Allende this month has been awarded the Bodley Medal—the Oxford-based Bodleian Libraries‘ top honor.
Easily missed in the spring’s riptide of England’s announcements around prizes, the first Bodley medal—gilt, likely on bronze—was struck in 1646 in honor of Sir Thomas Bodley (1545-1613. The piece’s engraving is the work of France’s Claude Warin.
A renovation of the Bodleian’s reading rooms enabled a set of 100 replicas to be made, using copper from the library’s roof. The first of these modern editions was struck at the Royal Mint in 2001. Sir Thomas’ image is seen on the obverse; on the reverse is a woman holding two busts, one of Diana and the other of Apollo, with an inscription referring to “the eternity of the Republic of Letters.”
The Bodley Medal, obverse. Image: Bodleian Libraries
- Allende received her medal on February 12 at New York City’s Morgan Library and Museum, where the show Franz Kafka continues its run through April 13.
- A second laureate, the British photojournalist Sir Don McCullin CBE, is to receive his medal on April 3 at the Sheldonian on Broad Street in Oxford.
First awarded in 2002, the Bodley Medal in past years has gone to PD James and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (2002); Dame Hilary Mantel (2013; Mary Beard (2016); Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (2019); Zadie Smith (2022); Colm Tóibín (2023); and most recently Philip Pullman (2024).
The Bodley Medal, reverse. Image: Bodleian Libraries
The Bodleian Libraries system, based at the University of Oxford, is the largest such installation of its kind in the United Kingdom. A total 27 libraries hold what the program says is an aggregate inventory of more than 13 million printed items; more than 80,000 e-journals; and special collections including rare books and manuscripts; classical papyri; maps; music; art; and printed ephemera.
The main facility is the Bodleian Library in Oxford, of course, a legal deposit library for some four centuries, founded by Sir Thomas Bodley (1545-1613), who was a diplomat for Queen Elizabeth I.
Allende, 82 and born in Peru, is no stranger to accolades, having won a lifetime achievement award from PEN Center; the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cleveland Foundation; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 from Barack Obama.
Related article: The US National Book Awards Honor Isabel Allende: ‘I’ve Found a Place.’ Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
Many of our readers will remember that Allende received the United States’ National Book Foundation‘d Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2018, telling her audience, “Maybe I’ve found a place I can belong.
“Although I am critical about many things in this country, I am very proud to be an American citizen.”
Allende today is a resident of California and has been inducted into that state’s hall of fame.
Sir Don McCullin
Now awaiting his Bodley Medal ceremony at the Sheldonian Theatre in April, McCullin is 90, and began his national service in 1953 by applying to the Royal Air Force as a photographer.
Sir Don McCullin. Image: CC BY 3.0 TV Brasil
He went on to develop in journalism as an overseas correspondent for the Sunday Times Magazine, covering Biafra, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, and Lebanon.
His work has also included landscape photography focused on his home county, Somerset. A major retrospective of McCullin’s work was seen at the Tate Britain in 2019.
More from Publishing Perspectives on international book and publishing awards is here; more on the United Kingdom’s book market is here; and more on the United States’ book market is here.