Women’s Prize For Fiction - Women's Prize : Women's Prize

Winner

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Composed of letters to friends, family and real-life authors, The Correspondent is an uplifting and moving novel that confronts the hubris of youth with the wisdom of older age. Through her 73-year-old protagonist Sybil Van Antwerp’s connection with the written word, Evans considers the choices we make, those we regret and unexpected second chances.

The Correspondent

Prize Overview

The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the most successful, influential and popular literary prizes in the world, championing and amplifying women’s voices and nurturing a global community of readers.

The Prize was established in 1996 to highlight and remedy the imbalance in coverage, respect and reverence given to women writers versus their male peers, creating a platform for exceptional writing by women to shine.

The Prize is recognises excellent, original and accessible novels written in English and published in the UK. The winner receives £30,000, anonymously endowed, and the ‘Bessie’, a bronze statuette created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven.

Judging Process

Every year, a panel of five women, all passionate readers and at the top of their respective professions, choose a longlist of sixteen, shortlist of six and ultimately one winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The whole process starts in the summer of the previous year, when we invite UK publishers to submit eligible books.

Judges plunge immediately into reading their allocated books, basing their deliberations for the longlist, shortlist and winner on three core tenets, which have remained the same since the Prize was founded: excellence, originality and accessibility.

The 2027 Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist will be announced on 10 March 2027, and the shortlist on 28 April 2027. Winners of the Women’s Prizes for Fiction and Non-Fiction will be revealed on 17 June at the Women’s Prize Trust’s annual summer party in Bedford Square Gardens, London.