Maggie O’Farrell wins the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction!

Irish-British novelist Maggie O’Farrell has taken home the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction for Hamnet, an historical novel about the death of William Shakespeare’s son.

Maggie O’Farrell

2020 marks the 25th year of the prize, which celebrates “excellence, originality, and accessibility in writing by women in English from across the world”. The 2020 prize was awarded during a live digital awards ceremony hosted by Chair of Judges Martha Lane Fox and fellow judge Paula Hawkins. O’Farrell will take home £30,000 in prize money along with the ‘Bessie’, a limited-edition bronze figurine that was donated by the artist.

Hamnet was selected as the 2020 Women’s Prize winner from a fierce shortlist that included previous Booker winner Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo and the acclaimed finale to the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel.

Martha Lane Fox said:

“The euphoria of being in the same room for the final judging meeting was quickly eclipsed by the excitement we all feel about this exceptional winner. Hamnet, while set long ago, like all truly great novels expresses something profound about the human experience that seems both extraordinarily current and at the same time, enduring.”

Congratulations Maggie!

Read our review of Hamnet here and find out more about the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction here.

Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell

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...

Order NowRead More

No comments Share:

About the Contributor

Olivia Fricot

Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.

Follow Olivia: Twitter