Awards and Prizes

Robert B. Silvers Prize for Literary Criticism, 2024
Became a Companion of Honour in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, 2022
Acqui Storia Special Lifetime Acheivement Award, 2021
President, Royal Society of Literature, 2017-2021

Distinguished Fellow, All Souls, Oxford, 2019
Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy, 2018
Senior Fellow of The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University, 2018
British Academy Medal, 2017
The Holberg Prize, 2015
Awarded the DBE in the New Year Honours List for her services to higher education and literary scholarship, 2015
Professorial Research Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 2014
Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Arab Culture in Non-Arabic Languages, 2013
Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, 2013
National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism 2012

Awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for Services to Literature, 2008
Honorary Fellow of The Pataphysical Society, London 2007
Fellow of the British Academy, 2005
Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella di Solidareità, Italy, 2005
President of the Virgil Society, 2004
Vice-President, Institute of Greece, Rome, and Classical Studies, University of Bristol, 2004
Aby Warburg Prize, 2004
President of the Virgil Society, 2004

Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, 2000
Honorary Fellow, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, 2000
Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, British Academy, 2000
Katharine Briggs Memorial Prize, 1999
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award, 1996
Harvey Darton Prize, 1996
Honorary Fellow, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 1994

Commonwealth Writer’s Prize (Eurasia), 1989
PEN Silver Pen Award, 1988
Booker Prize Short List, 1988
Fawcett Prize, 1986
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 1985

Daily Express Award, 1972
Young Writer of the Year (Daily Telegraph Award), 1971
Runner Up: W.H. Smith Children’s Poetry Prize, 1964

Honorary Degrees

Two-Year Fellowship, All Souls College Oxford, 2013
Honorary Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford, 2013
Honorary Fellow at St Cross College, Oxford, 2013

Hon. Dr., University of Leicester, 2006
King’s College London, 2009
University of Leicester, 2006
Hon. D.Litt., University of Kent, 2005

Hon. Dr., Royal College of Art, 2004
Oxford University (2002)
Hon. Dr., Tavistock Institute (University of East London), 1999
Hon D. Litt., University of St Andrew’s, 1998

Hon. Dr., University of North London, 1997
Hon D.Litt., University of York, 1997
Hon. Dr., Sheffield Hallam University, 1995
Hon. D. Litt., University of Exeter, 1995