We are over the moon to announce the 29th Women’s Prize for Fiction winner and the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction winner.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction was won by American author, V. V. Ganeshananthan, for her deeply moving, powerful second novel, Brotherless Night, which depicts a family fractured by the Sri Lankan civil war.
The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction was awarded to Canadian bestselling writer, global activist and film-maker, Naomi Klein, for Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World; her urgent, illuminating examination of our polarised society.
Both winners were announced at a ceremony in Bedford Square Gardens, central London, hosted by novelist, playwright and Women’s Prizes Founder Director Kate Mosse CBE. As the winner of the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction, sponsored by Audible and Baileys, V. V. Ganeshananthan will receive a prize fund of £30,000, anonymously endowed, along with a limited-edition bronze statuette known as the ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Winning the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, sponsored by Findmypast, Naomi Klein will receive £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the ‘Charlotte’, both gifted by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.
V. V. Ganeshananthan on stage at Women's Prize LIVE
‘Brotherless Night is a brilliant, compelling and deeply moving novel that bears witness to the intimate and epic-scale tragedies of the Sri Lankan civil war. In rich, evocative prose, Ganeshananthan creates a vivid sense of time and place and an indelible cast of characters. Her commitment to complexity and clear-eyed moral scrutiny combines with spellbinding storytelling to render Brotherless Night a masterpiece of historical fiction.’
Monica Ali, Chair of Judges for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
Monica Ali was joined on the judging panel for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction by author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ; author and illustrator Laura Dockrill; actor Indira Varma; and presenter and author Anna Whitehouse.
Naomi Klein on stage at Women's Prize LIVE
‘This brilliant and layered analysis demonstrates humour, insight and expertise. Klein’s writing is both deeply personal and impressively expansive. Doppelganger is a courageous, humane and optimistic call-to-arms that moves us beyond black and white, beyond Right and Left, inviting us instead to embrace the spaces in between.’
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, Chair of Judges for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction
Professor Lipscomb was joined on the judging panel for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction by fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna; academic, author and consultant Professor Nicola Rollock; biographer and journalist Anne Sebba; and author and 2018 winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Kamila Shamsie.
