Women’s Award: Virginia Evans wins for fiction and Lyse Doucet wins for fiction | Books

First-time novelist Virginia Evans has won this year’s Women’s Fiction award, while the BBC’s senior international correspondent Lyse Doucet won the prize for nonfiction, also for her debut novel.

Evans’s The Correspondent and Doucet’s The Finest Hotel in Kabul were announced as winners at the event in central London on Thursday evening, with each author receiving £30,000.

Julia Gillard, former prime minister of Australia and chair of the jury for the fiction prize, described The Reporter as “a wonderful book, a perfect combination of creativity and accessibility”, adding that it “captured our hearts, and should be read and enjoyed by all”.

Made up of letters to friends, family and writers, The Reporter follows 73-year-old Sybil Van Antwerp’s communication to her loved ones and the written word. When Sybil loses her sight, she uses letters to deal with some unresolved issues in her life and relationships.

Rebecca Wait, to review the Guardian bookhe called it “brilliant and moving”, describing it as “easy to correspond with” and “a very enjoyable read”. The film is being produced, which won the Oscar actress Jane Fonda.

Canadian journalist Doucet places the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul at the heart of the “public history” of modern Afghanistan. He writes about the lives of people passing through the hotel, where he stayed on his way back from the country as a foreign correspondent, against the backdrop of years of war and political upheaval.

William Dalrymple, to review the Guardian bookhe described it as “brilliant, insightful and at times depressing”, adding that Doucet “has succeeded in making the hotel a remarkable success in the history of Afghanistan over the years”.

Thangam Debbonaire, a former Labor MP and chairman of the jury, described the book as “a brilliant work of fiction … brilliantly crafted and brilliantly researched”, adding that it would “make you cry or laugh, or maybe both”.

This year a series of fictional stories also displayed Flashlight by Susan Choi, Dominion and Addie E Citchens, The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson, Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly and A Loving Heart by Lily King.

Along with Doucet’s bestselling book, series of fictional stories including Art Cure and Daisy Fancourt, Artists, Brothers, Visions of Judith Mackrell, Hotel Exile by Jane Rogoyska, Mother Mary Comes to Me By Arundhati Roy and Nation of Strangers by Ece Temelkuran.

Creation of the Mother’s award for non-fiction in 2023 was inspired by a study which found that only 35.5% of the winners of the seven major UK tournaments of the last decade were women.

Last year’s prize for fiction went to another first-time novelist, Yael van der Wouden, because. The Safekeepwhile the prize for nothing went to Rachel Clarke A Story of the Heart. Past winners of the fiction prize include Zadie Smith, Ali Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Gillard was joined on the fictional judging panel by poet and poet Mona Arshi, writer and presenter Salma El-Wardany, actress and comedian Cariad Lloyd and writer and DJ Annie Macmanus.

Debbonaire’s inevitable judging panel included Roma Agrawal, engineer and writer; Nicola Elliott, founder of Neom Wellbeing; Nina Stibbe, novelist and memoirist; and Nicola Williams, royal court judge and entertainment writer.