British author Naomi Alderman has won the international Women’s Prize for Fiction for her gender role-reversal thriller The Power.
Alderman, a prize-winning novelist and online games designer, was awarded the £30,000 prize at a ceremony in London on Wednesday for her novel, in which girls and women suddenly discover they have the power to electrocute people at will.
Television executive Tessa Ross, who chaired the judging panel, praised Alderman’s “brilliantly imagined dystopia – her big ideas and her fantastic imagination.”
Alderman beat five other finalists: Canada’s Madeleine Thien, US writer CE Morgan, Britain’s Linda Grant, Nigeria’s Ayobami Adebayo and Britain’s Gwendoline Riley.
Founded in 1996, the prestigious prize is open to female English-language writers from around the world. From 2018, the prize will be changing its name to Women’s Prize for Fiction.
