The winner of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced. Triumphing over authors including Elizabeth Strout and Miranda July, debut novelist Yael van der Woude took home the prize for The Safekeep.
Aiming to champion women authors and fresh voices, the prestigious literary award is now in its 30th year. The open-air ceremony was attended by Queen Camilla, who praised Kate Mosse and the other founders of the award. Camilla said, “They believed that women’s stories should be truly heard, understood and honoured; and that it was time to disprove Virginia Woolf’s famous statement that ‘Anon…was often a woman’”.
“They did this by establishing the Women’s Prize for Fiction and its instantly recognisable statuette, ‘The Bessie’. This simple, but radical, step brought the female voice from the margins of the literary world to its very centre,” she said.
According to the judges, each of the shortlisted books explored the need for personal freedom and human connection. They explore a range of topics, covering cultural heritage, friendship, and sexual awakenings.
Woude’s winning novel The Safekeep is a searing story of two women in the Netherlands after the Second World War. Chair of the fiction prize’s judging panel, author Kit de Waal, said: “The Safekeep is that rare thing: a masterful blend of history, suspense and historical authenticity … a classic in the making.”
Above all, the shortlisted novels put a spotlight on the female experience, from 1960s Europe to present-day America. Here’s everything you need to know about the winning book and the other novels in the running.
‘The Safekeep’ by Yael van der Wouden, published by Viking: £8.49, Amazon.co.uk
Set in the Netherlands, The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden is a story of facing up to desire and the past. It follows Isabel, living as a recluse in her late mother’s country home. Her solitary life of discipline and routine is threatened when her brother arranges for his new girlfriend to stay for the sweltering summer season. With just the two of them in the house, Isabel’s need for control is tested, and the tension between the women builds to a crescendo.
‘Fundamentally’ by Nussaibah Younis, published by W&N: £14.99, Waterstones.com
One of the buzziest debuts of the year – and a personal favourite – Nussaibah Younis’s Fundamentally is an entertaining novel about a brutal subject. It follows Nadia, a young lecturer whose research into Isis brides leads to her running a deradicalisation program. Newly heartbroken, she is thrown into the chaotic world of international aid. Nadia soon forms a connection with east Londoner Sara, who joined Isis when she was just 15. Exploring faith and friendship, radicalism and racism, and decades of bureaucratic and systemic corruption and hypocrisy, Younis is funny, thoughtful, and sensitive about difficult topics.
‘All Fours’ by Miranda July, published by Canongate Books: £10, Amazon.co.uk
With signature wryness, the celebrated American writer and director Miranda July explores female reinvention, sexuality and menopause in All Fours. It follows a 45-year-old woman who sets out on a road trip from LA to New York but ends up in an unconsummated affair with a handsome man in a motel room close to home. Three weeks later, she’s thrown back into her married, child-rearing life, but is this enough for her anymore? July breathes fresh life into a well-trodden theme – how creative and sexual freedom is at odds with the traditional trajectory of a woman’s life. Her protagonist breaks free of convention to have her cake and eat it, too. Hilarious and profound, there’s a reason why so many women love this novel.
‘The Persians’ by Sanam Mahloudji, published by Fourth Estate: £13.92, Amazon.co.uk
Another absorbing debut, The Persians tells the story of three generations of women in a once illustrious family in Iran. Spanning from the 1940s up to the present day, the narrative is shared between five women, beginning with Elizabeth. The elderly matriarch of the family during the 1979 revolution, Elizabeth decides to stay with her husband in Iran and sends her two daughters, Seem and Shirin, to America. Elizabeth’s grandchildren are split up; one of them, Niaz, stays with her grandmother in Iran; the other, Bita, is a law student who feels generational guilt for the country her parents left behind. Drawing comparisons to Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, it’s a powerful story of one family and their country.
‘Tell Me Everything’ by Elizabeth Strout, published by Penguin: £16.99, Waterstones.com
Elizabeth Strout has been longlisted four times and shortlisted twice for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her latest recognition comes for Tell Me Everything, which sees two of her most famous characters meet – a delight for her fans. It’s autumn in Maine, and long-time Crosby inhabitant Olive Kitteridge now resides at a retirement home in the coastal town. She is befriended by the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives in a house by the sea. Striking up a special bond, the two spend long afternoons telling each other stories of the people they have known and the places they’ve been. Quietly beautiful, the novel explores new friendships and old loves.
‘Good Girl’ by Aria Aber, published by Bloomsbury: £14, Amazon.co.uk
Aria Aber’s debut Good Girl follows Nila, a wild party-girl and aspiring artist growing up in Berlin. The daughter of Afghan doctors who fled their country before she was born, she is grieving the death of her mother and finding solace in the nightclubs of Berlin. A tumultuous romance with a charismatic American author offers escape from the pressure of being the Afghan ideal of a “good girl.” Exploring politics, art, history and shame in her journey of self-discovery, it’s won critical acclaim.
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