Established in 1996, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction is the world’s most prestigious annual book award for fiction written by a woman, it celebrates and promotes fiction by women throughout the world to the widest range of readers possible.
The ‘Best of the Best’ was chosen from the ten novels that have won the prize in the past decade. The panel of judges read from each of the ten prize-winning novels before the ‘Best of the Best’ is announced.
Responding to her winning the prestigious award, the 38-year old, nonfiction writer said: I am grateful and happy.
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“This is a prize I have a lot of respect and admiration for.
“Fiction brought wonderful literature to a wide readership that might not have found many of the books.
“I have a lot of respect for the books that have won in the past 10 years and also for the books that have been shortlisted, I feel I am in very good company.”
Half of a Yellow Sun won the Bailey’s Women’s Prize in 2007, then it was still known as the Orange Prize.
Other winners of the Baileys Prize from the last decade include Zadie Smith for On Beauty and Eimear McBride for A Girl is a Half-formed Thing.