Professor Patricia J. Williams Awarded Yale’s Prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize

03.25.2025 – Professor Patricia J. Williams has been named a recipient of a 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction, one of the world’s most significant international literary awards. In addition to a citation and award, winners of the prizes — given in fiction, poetry, nonfiction and drama — receive an unrestricted grant of $175,000 to support their writing.

One of the most provocative intellectuals in American law, Williams has published widely in the areas of race, gender, literature and law. The prize recognizes her 2024 book, The Miracle of the Black Leg: Notes on Race, Human Bodies, and the Spirit of the Law (The New Press, 2024), an expansive and deeply humane collection of essays that explores the tricky places where history, law and identity collide.

“In incisive works of moral philosophy and cultural critique, Patricia J. Williams draws together history, memoir and legal scholarship to reckon with urgent issues of our time,” wrote the Windham-Campbell Prizes at Yale University in a statement on their website.

“I am literally floating — this much pure joy is electric!” said Williams, a past MacArthur Fellowship recipient and the author of six books. “Honestly, what an amazing gift, to be able to write, and to just write!”

Watch Professor Williams’ response:

Williams is one of only eight writers from around the world that have been honored with 2025 Windham-Campbell Prizes at Yale University. The other recipients are Anne Enright and Sigrid Nunez (fiction); Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini and Roy Williams (drama); Anthony V. Capildeo and Tongo Eisen-Martin (poetry) and Rana Dasgupta (nonfiction).

The recipients, who are nominated confidentially and judged anonymously, did not know they were under consideration until Michael Kelleher, director of the Windham-Campbell prizes, personally delivered the news of their selection in mid-February. The awards will be presented in person in the fall during an annual international literary festival at Yale.

Watch the prize announcement video:

The prizes were established in 2013 with a gift from Donald Windham in memory of his partner of 40 years, Sandy Campbell. They are administered by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.