Select Winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction

The Women’s Prize Trust champions women writers to readers on a global stage.

They showcase the very best writing by women for everyone through the annual Women’s Prize for Fiction, the largest celebration of women’s creativity in the world. The Prize was founded in 1996 to celebrate and honour the best of fiction writing by women, and to fund a range of charitable and educational initiatives to benefit readers.

This time, we would like to introduce you to several past winners (from 2020 to 2022) of this prestigious award. Which of these would you add to your TBR pile?

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022

After the tragic death of his father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house and sound variously pleasant, angry or sad. Then his mother develops a hoarding problem, and the voices grow more clamorous. When ignoring them doesn’t work, Benny seeks refuge in the silence of a large public library. There he meets a mesmerising street artist with a smug pet ferret; a homeless philosopher-poet who encourages him to find his own voice amongst the many; and his very own Book, who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.

Blending unforgettable characters with everything from jazz to climate change to our attachment to material possessions, this is classic Ruth Ozeki – bold, humane and heartbreaking.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

Piranesi lives in the House.

Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides which thunder up staircases, the clouds which move in slow procession through the upper halls.

On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone. Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?

Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous. The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020

On a summer’s day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.

Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; a flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker’s son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining story of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.

Intrigued? Look up these books in our online store. And if this selection feels short, check out more previous winners of the award at https://womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/reading-women. We hope you’ll find something you like!