Evie Wyld, a bookseller from south London, won the £5,000 (US$8,318) John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her debut novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (Pantheon, $24, 9780307378460/0307378462). She topped a shortlist that included 2008 Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga and 2007 Orange winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Chair of the judges Louise Doughty "saluted the strength of the shortlist, and the awareness of young Commonwealth writers whose work is eligible for the award. 'Writers under 35 are really tackling the big subjects across the board,' she said. 'There isn't a sense that they are hiding in a hole,'" the Guardian wrote.