Yael van der Wouden and Rachel Clarke are the winners of this year’s Women’s Prizes, given annually to outstanding books written by women and published in the U.K.
The authors were announced as the winners of the awards at a ceremony Thursday evening in London.
Van der Wouden won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for The Safekeep, her novel about a Dutch woman in 1961 who has a contentious relationship with her brother’s new girlfriend. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book, which was also a finalist for the Booker Prize, “a brilliant debut, as multifaceted as a gem.”
Kit de Waal, chair of judges for the fiction prize, said, “The Safekeep is that rare thing: a masterful blend of history, suspense and historical authenticity. Every word is perfectly placed, page after page revealing an aspect of war and the Holocaust that has been, until now, mostly unexplored in fiction.”
Clarke was named the winner of the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction for The Story of a Heart: Two Families, One Heart, and a Medical Miracle, which was previously shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize. The book tells the story of two families who became intertwined following a heart transplant; a Kirkus critic called it “a poignantly celebratory tale.”
Kavita Puri, the nonfiction award’s chair of judges, said of Clarke, “She holds this precious story with great care and tells it with dignity, interweaving the history of transplant surgery seamlessly.”
The Women’s Prize for Fiction was established in 1996. Previous winners include Ann Patchett for Bel Canto and Tayari Jones for An American Marriage. The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction was first awarded last year, to Naomi Klein for Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
