Romalyn Ante – the Poetry London Prize and Manchester Poetry Prize-winning author of AGIMAT and upcoming debut novel THE LEFT-BEHIND CHILD – has been granted the Royal Society of Literature’s Literature Matters Award for her work-in-progress novel TANKER BOYS: A Voyage of Memory and Masculinity. Rewarding and enabling literary excellence and innovation, the Literature Matters Award supports writers and organisations developing new writing or literary projects by offering grants totalling £20,000 to a select number of awardees each year.

Romalyn was awarded £3,000 for her proposal for TANKER BOYS, a novel exploring drift, distance, and the quiet burdens migrant men bear at sea. Through conversations with seafaring and Filipino communities – listening and exchanging stories – Romalyn will gather the textures that shape the narrative, using the grant to fund her research and travel, and enabling her to immerse herself in costal port communities.

‘I’m honoured to receive the RSL Literature Matters award for my novel-in-progress, TANKER BOYS’, wrote Romalyn in response to the news. ‘This recognition provides the vital space to complete the novel’s very first draft. The story seeks to give voice to the migrant men who form the backbone of the maritime workforce – an idea born from watching my younger brother carry on with the work of a seafarer, rarely speaking of its hardships. I’m excited to explore a world that I have only ever known from a distance.’

The judges for the 2025 prize were playwright Hannah Khalil, publisher and activist Kristen Vida Alfaro, and Royal Literary Fund Director of Education Steve Cook. Also recognised this year were Claire Abji, Bebe Ashley, Melissa Fry and Steve Tuffin, The New Common Sense, Jess Smith, Emma Warren and Jemilea Wisdom-Baako.

Romalyn’s debut novel, THE LEFT-BEHIND CHILD, following the stories of Neneng, a spirited girl growing up in the Philippines and her mother, Rosa, who leaves their country to work as a nurse overseas, will be published in the UK by Chatto & Windus on 13 August 2026.

About Romalyn Ante

Romalyn Ante is a Filipino-British writer born and bred in Lipa, Philippines. She was 16 years old when her mother – a nurse in the National Health Service – brought the family to the United Kingdom. She now lives in the West Midlands where, as well as writing and editing, she works as a registered NHS nurse and psychotherapist, specialising in the mental healthcare of young people.

Her debut poetry collection, ANTIEMETIC FOR HOMESICKNESS, is published by Chatto & Windus and was an Irish Times Best Poetry Book of 2020, an Observer Poetry Book of the Month and a Poetry School Poetry Book of the Year 2020. It was also a National Poetry Day UK Recommended Read and was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Chatto published her second collection AGIMAT in 2023, which was longlisted for the 2025 Jhalak Prize for Poetry.

She is co-founding editor of harana poetry, a magazine for poets who write in English as a second or parallel language, and the founder of Tsaá with Roma, an online interview series with poets and other creatives. She was awarded the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship and she currently sits as an editorial board member for Poetry London magazine. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the first East-Asian writer to win the Poetry London Prize (2018) and the Manchester Poetry Prize (2017). She also won the Creative Future Literary Award 2017.

Romalyn Ante – the Poetry London Prize and Manchester Poetry Prize-winning author of AGIMAT and ANTIEMETIC FOR HOMESICKNESS – has written her debut novel THE LEFT-BEHIND CHILD, which reveals the experiences of Filipino overseas workers, untold in fiction until now, through the story of one family, and one daughter in particular. Rosanna Hildyard, assistant editor at Chatto & Windus, has acquired World All-Language rights from Isobel Dixon, with publication in the UK set for 2 July 2026.

The book is an evocative coming-of-age story following Neneng, a spirited girl growing up in Lipa, whose life is forced onto a new path when her mother, Rosa, leaves to work as a nurse in Oman and then the UK.

As Neneng navigates the pressures of caring for a ‘left behind’ family, her resentment at her mother’s desertion, and the experience of first love, things come to a head when she herself falls into danger. Yet THE LEFT-BEHIND CHILD shows that perhaps Neneng and Rosa’s experiences are not so different, despite being geographically far apart.

‘I feel incredibly honoured that Chatto and the Blake Friedmann Literary Agency believed in this novel, even in its earliest stages,’ said Romalyn. ‘This is our story, but it’s also yours: a story of every child and parent separated by distance and time. I hope it gives voice to the narratives that have been left behind, yet continue to shape who we are – and the love that we carry.’

‘When I first read Ante’s prose, I was blown away by the emotional pull of the relationship she portrays between an equally stubborn mother and daughter,’ added Rosanna Hildyard. ‘This novel takes you to the heart of one particular family, but it also puts the spotlight on a global community that many countries rely on – with over 40,000 Filipino health workers in the UK’s NHS alone. It’s an unforgettable and important story.’

Isobel Dixon said: ‘Romalyn Ante’s poetry has captivated and challenged me since I first heard her read her prizewinning poem of nursing experience, ‘Names’, years ago. I am thrilled that Rosanna Hildyard and Chatto have embraced her vivid storytelling in THE LEFT-BEHIND CHILD, a novel of both heartbreak and balm, that will speak to so many readers around the world.’

US and Translation rights are available. For US, please contact Lucy Beresford-Knox (LBeresford-Knox@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk), and for translation requests, please be in touch with Celia Long (CLong1@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk).

About Romalyn Ante

Praise for Romalyn Ante

‘Ante is an alchemical wonder of a poet: unparalleled in her image-making, raw to both historical and contemporary damage and rich in cultures.’ – Fiona Benson

‘Captivating, playful, moving, witty and agile... an unforced poet with a lightness of touch and fortitude’ – The Guardian

‘Romalyn Ante is a poet to fall in love with’ – Liz Berry

‘Ante's poems are like embers, pared back to a slow-burning emotional core’ – Times Literary Supplement

‘I felt grateful for the tender attention the poet affords to a hope that many of us hold dear: that as patients – that as people – we may amount to more than just flesh and bone. Thankfully, in the hands of Romalyn Ante the human self far exceeds statistics and the subtotal of all its scars.’ – Jade Cuttle, The Observer

Follow Romalyn on X and Instagram