V. V. Ganeshananthan and Naomi Klein were announced last night as the 2024 winners of the Women's Prizes. Ganeshananthan won the Women's Prize for Fiction for her novel Brotherless Night, while Klein won the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction for Doppelganger.

The Women's Prize is awared annually and is open to all women writers, writing in English and published in the UK. The fiction winner receives £30,000, anonymously endowed, and the ‘Bessie’, a bronze statuette created by the artist Grizel Niven. The nonfiction winner receives £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the ‘Charlotte’, both gifted by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.

The winner of the 29th Women’s Prize for Fiction is: Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan

This beautifully written story follows Sashi, a sixteen-year-old aspiring doctor, growing up in Jaffna in the 1980s. Her close family is torn apart by the onset of civil war. Brotherless Night vividly and compassionately centres itself around erased and marginalised stories – Tamil women, students, teachers, ordinary civilians – exploring the moral nuances of violence and terrorism against a backdrop of oppression and exile.

The winner of the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction is: Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World shines a light on the shadow world of social media – where facts are malleable, disinformation is prevalent and conspiracy theories abound. Klein captures the absurdities and dangers of the modern age, on a personal, social and political level. Doppelganger prompts us to rethink the moment we’re in, to reject fixed ideas about each other, and to forge a path to a more cohesive, inclusive and stable future.