The Women's Prize for Fiction and the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction were announced in London on 13 June 2024. As luck would have it, I was in London on the day of the announcement, but unfortunately I was unable to attend the ceremony.
The Winners were as follows:
Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein has written many great non-fiction works including No Logo (1999), The Shock Doctrine (2007) and This Changes Everything (2014). Her latest work, Doppelgänger, is about how she was continually getting mistaken for Naomi Wolf, which lead her down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and online hate. I have recently started reading this book.
Fiction: VV Ganeshananthan for Brotherless Night
In Jafna, 1981, teenage Sashi wants to become a doctor but the Sri Lankan civil war steers her dream on another path as her brothers and friend get caught up in the political crisis. She takes up a role working as a medic at a field hospital for the Tamil Tigers, but as the fighting continues Sashi questions where she stands. The judges said 'visceral, historical, emotional. It is 300 pages of must-read prose.' Author Ganeshananthan is best known for Love Marriage which was longlisted for the Women's Prize in 2009.
The announcement of the winners is available on YouTube:
I am really pleased that the Women's Prize has expanded to include a separate award for Non-Fiction.