The Women's Prize Trust has awarded the Women's Prize Outstanding Contribution Award, a special literary honor marking the 30th anniversary of the Women's Prize for Fiction and funded by Bukhman Philanthropies, to Bernardine Evaristo to recognize her "body of work, her transformative impact on literature and her unwavering dedication to uplifting under-represented voices across the cultural landscape."
Evaristo will receive £100,000 (about $135,350) and a special sculpture named "Thoughtful" by Caroline Russell, to be presented on June 12 at the Women's Prize Trust's summer party in London, along with the winners of the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction and the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction.
Organizers cited Evaristo's "beautiful, ambitious and inventive body of work (which includes plays, poetry, essays, monologues and memoir as well as award-winning fiction), her dazzling skill and imagination, and her courage to take risks and offer readers a pathway into diverse and multifarious worlds over a 40-year career."
She has written seven novels, including Girl, Woman, Other, which won the Booker Prize in 2019, and Mr Loverman. She has also written the memoir Manifesto: On Never Giving Up and Look Again: Feminism.
Evaristo was also cited for being an "advocate for inclusivity in the arts... In addition to her literary and professional success, she has spearheaded innumerable initiatives to address inequities in the creative industries, inspiring future generations of writers and creatives to challenge the status quo and celebrate diversity."
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Abi Daré won the inaugural £10,000 (about $13,525) Climate Fiction Prize, which celebrates the most inspiring novels tackling the climate crisis, for And So I Roar (published in the U.S. by Dutton). The novel follows 14-year-old Adunni from her life in Lagos, Nigeria, where she is excited finally to enroll in school, to her home village where she is summoned to face charges for events that are in fact caused by climate change.
Chair of judges Madeleine Bunting praised the novel as "a book of real energy and passion which both horrifies and entertains with a cast of compelling characters, a story of how the climate crisis can provoke social crisis where often women and children are the victims. Despite the tragedy, Abi Daré holds faith in the strength of individuals and relationships and her hopefulness leaves us inspired."
Daré commented: "This prize matters because fiction lets us bear witness and makes the abstract real. It gets under your skin and moves the heart in a way data alone cannot."