A new award for travel writing by women was announced yesterday at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The Ilse Schwepcke prize, for the year’s best book in English, will be worth £5,000, according to The Bookseller. The first winner, chosen by a panel of writers and booksellers, will be named at next year’s fair.

Barbara Schwepcke, of the London-based Haus Publishing, with her uncle Karl-Burkhard Haus, set up the prize in memory of her mother, Ilse, a “devotee” of travel writing, feminist and founding editor of Haus’s Armchair Traveller series. A sister prize, Der Ilse-Schwepcke-Preis, will be awarded for the best travel book by a woman writing in German.

Barbara Schwepcke said: “My mother was passionate about great travel writing and great writing by women. These prizes in her name will celebrate the adventurousness and literary skill of women at a time when women’s rights are under attack in many places around the world. This will be the most generous prize for women travel writers in the world. It’s never been more important to read women’s experiences as travellers and to affirm women’s right to travel near and far.”

The inaugural English-language prize will be judged by: Helena Attlee, travel writer and author of the acclaimed The Land Where Lemons Grow; Arabella Friesen, of the London shop John Sandoe Books; and Stephanie Yeboa, author and style and travel blogger.