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Nicoletta Asciuto wins ESSE 2026 First Book Award!

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Posted on Monday 7 September 2026

Huge congratulations to Dr Nicoletta Asciuto, whose book 'Brilliant Modernism' has been awarded the ESSE 2026 First Book Award at an award ceremony in Santiago de Compostela.

Brilliant Modernism was published in January 2025 by Johns Hopkins University Press and has already received significant praise in academic reviews. Christina Walter from the University of Maryland, for example, has called the book “a rich and original contribution to the histories of modernist poetry and technological culture” and “an important new contribution” (American Literary History, 37/4, Winter 2025).

The ESSE awards six book prizes, across all areas of English studies: English Language and Linguistics; Literatures in the English Language; Cultural and Area Studies. For each area two prizes are given, one for a first book and one for the “open” category. The ESSE awards are conferred biannually in conjunction with the ESSE conference.