The 2025 winner of Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses

Irish publisher Bullaun Press has won the Republic of Consciousness prize for small presses with the book There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert.

There’s a Monster Behind the Door is a “rollicking, sardonic picaresque”, said judge Houman Barekat. “The novel has important things to say about colonialism and society, but it’s also tremendous fun – darkly funny, acerbic, energetic.”

The novel, which is also longlisted for this year’s International Booker prize, is set in the 1980s in the French overseas department of Réunion Island, where Bélem was born. The book is “a compact, comic tour-de-force”, said judge Jude Cook. “It interrogates postcolonial legacies, domestic abuse and a young girl’s rite of passage into adulthood with the lightest of touches.”

There’s a Monster Behind the Door is Bélem’s first of two novels. The French edition won the Grand Prix du Roman Métis and the Prix André Dubreuil du Premier Roman. Bélem also teaches secondary school students and works as an associate judge in a juvenile court.

The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses 2025 Shortlist

The 5 books that comprised 2025’s Republic of Consciousness shortlist are listed below in no particular order.

To read the full shortlist announcement, (as well as consistent small press news + general musings) visit our Substack.

The winner event was held at foyles, charing cross road on april 1st, 2025.

Thank you to every press that made a submission and to our brilliant judges, Jude Cook, Alice Jolly & Houman Barekat

Our judges said: “An offbeat, elegantly written tale about two authors marooned an exchange programme in an unnamed totalitarian country. The narrative voice is great company, by turns droll, plaintive and ruminative. It’s whimsical but controlled, and surprisingly compulsive for a largely plotless novel.

Our judges said: “A rollicking, sardonic picaresque set on the French outpost of La Réunion in the. 1980s. The novel has important things to say about colonialism and society, but it’s also tremendous fun — darkly funny, acerbic, energetic. There’s scarcely a dull moment on the page, and the translation is remarkably slick.”

Our judges said: “Set in the fifth century and narrated by an irrepressible bard called Mother Naked, this novel is bawdy, funny and tragic. The voice of Mother Naked is entirely authentic. Both an entertaining read and a serious work of historical fiction.”

Our judges said: "Celina is a quiet book, written with great integrity. It tells the story of a young woman, born into poverty, who works as a maid in the household of Victor Hugo. In restrained and unsentimental prose it illuminates lives forgotten by history.”

Our judges said: “An urgent, bleakly funny, fragmentary account of displacement, queer desire, and finding a place in the world. Using a collage technique, Bakhti has produced an outstanding novel about identity and endurance.”

Each shortlisted press received a further £1000 than what was awarded at longlist stage, split 70% press / 30% writer (and translator). The winner, as always, got the glory.