The biggest trophy of the month isn’t the world cup, The Correspondent takes the top spot for women
We mark 30 years of the Women's Prize with rain, reflections and reading as identity
Whilst everyone might be talking about the World Cup, we've had our eyes on a very different competition. On Thursday evening, despite a little wind and rain, spirits were anything but damp at London’s Bedford Square Gardens, as the literary world gathered to mark a milestone moment: the 30th anniversary of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The atmosphere was buoyant throughout the night, with guests celebrating three decades of championing women’s voices in literature. But amid the celebrations, it was Virginia Evans who took centre stage, crowned this year’s Fiction Prize winner for her novel The Correspondent.
The epistolary novel, a favourite amongst the woman&home team, tells the story of a 73 year old woman. Reflecting and ruminating on her past, Sybil Van Antwerp's letters bring long-buried regrets and secrets back to the front of her mind with warmth and originality. But what else was on the shortlist? And could they be the books you should be reading this month?
Women's Prize Winners for Fiction and Non-Fiction
Author of The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, was met with warm applause. Her speech was an emotional reflection on what reading has meant to her life. Speaking to guests, Evans described books as a constant companion since childhood.
“Ever since I was a child I found my greatest comfort in books,” she said. “I am here where I am bound to my body, but here is the secret, I am also somewhere else… I am a reader, which means I have never been bored.”
She added: “I have always known this is what I was made for: books and fiction. It is one of the greatest gifts of my life.”
The judges praised The Correspondent as “exemplary”, recognising Evans’ novel for its emotional depth and originality. Told through letters written by a 73-year-old protagonist, the book explores memory, regret and the quiet weight of a life lived in full.
The evening also reflected on the Women's Prize’s wider legacy. Former Australian Prime Minister and this year’s chair of judges, Julia Gillard, used her speech to highlight the enduring importance of storytelling in an increasingly technological world.
“AI can cannibalise text,” she said, “but it is only human beings who can imagine our way into being someone else: a person who lives in a different time and place, who thinks and feels in a way contrary to our own.”
Her comments underscored a broader theme running through the evening: the enduring power of human voice, imagination and empathy in fiction.
The £30,000 prize, awarded annually to a female author of any nationality, has long been a key fixture in the literary calendar. This year’s shortlist reflected both emerging and established talent, with four of the six fiction nominees appearing on the Women’s Prize shortlist for the first time.
Gillard described the judging process as one led first and foremost by reading. “As judges, we are first and foremost readers,” she said. “These novels intrigued and profoundly moved us. The plot lines kept us turning pages to find out what happens next, the characters found a place in our hearts and the stories stayed with us long after the last sentence.”
Alongside Evans’ winning novel, the shortlist showcased a wide range of themes and settings:
A reflection on life through the eyes of 73 year old Sybil Van Antwerp. Losing her sight, she reads through her letters to her children, favourite authors, family, and more. The mystery lies in the one letter she's never sent.
On a summer evening in a coastal Japanese town, ten-year-old Louisa wakes on the beach after a walk with her father, Serk, who has seemingly drowned and disappeared. As her fractured family returns to the US, his absence ripples across time and distance, slowly unraveling the mystery of what really happened that night.
Set in Dominion, Mississippi, the novel follows Reverend Sabre Winfrey, Jr., a powerful preacher whose influence shapes the entire community, alongside his wife Priscilla and their five sons, including the charismatic but volatile Wonderboy. When Wonderboy’s actions trigger a violent incident, the story unfolds through the women around him, exposing the costs of patriarchy and the compromises women make to survive it.
Set in 1960s Bradford, the novel follows Mercy, a young girl growing up in a crowded Windrush-generation household where faith, family tension and her father’s temper shape her world. Retreating into books and imagination, she begins to quietly plan her escape from a traumatic childhood, in a raw and deeply affecting story of survival, resilience and Black British experience.
A creative writing academic becomes fixated on a luminous poet colleague whose freedom and artistry draw him away from his steady home life with his partner, Michael. As admiration turns into obsession and illness closes in, the novel traces a fragile balance between desire, grief and the blurred boundaries of intimacy, ambition and possession.
A successful writer reflects on a love story from her college years, when she was drawn into the intense world of star students Sam and Yash, where friendship, desire and intellectual intensity quickly became entangled. Decades later, a surprise visit forces her to confront the choices and secrets of that formative time, and the lasting impact of a past she thought she had left behind.
The evening also celebrated the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, awarded to Lyse Doucet for The Finest Hotel in Kabul, described by judges as a “perfect work of narrative non-fiction”.
The shortlist featured a broad range of subjects, from art and health to conflict and identity, including Art Cure by Daisy Fancourt, Artists, Siblings, Visionaries by Judith Mackrell, Hotel Exile by Jane Rogoyska, Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy, and Nation of Strangers by Ece Temelkuran.
As the 30th anniversary celebrations made clear, the Women’s Prize continues to be both a spotlight for extraordinary fiction and a reminder of why stories, in all their forms, still matter.
