Now in its 30th year, the Women's Prize for Fiction aims to recognize and celebrate the best original full-length novel written in English by a female author of any nationality, published in the U.K. in the preceding year. The winner receives £30,000 (equivalent to $40,000) and a bronze statuette named "Bessie" created by artist Grizel Niven.

This year's award was given to Dutch debut novelist Yael van der Wouden for The Safekeep (Avid Reader). The novel, set in the Netherlands in 1961, is about a house acquired during World War II and inherited by the next generation who are forced to confront lingering trauma from the war around the treatment of Dutch Jews. During the ceremony, Van der Wouden revealed she is intersex and dedicated her win to the trans community. "The fact I am receiving truly the greatest honor of my life as a woman, presenting to you as a woman and accepting this women's prize, and that is because of every single trans person who's fought for healthcare, who changed the system, the law, societal standards, themselves," she said. "I stand on their shoulders."

The Women's Prize for Non-Fiction launched in 2024 as a sister prize to the Women's Prize for Fiction, celebrates exceptional narrative nonfiction written by women in English and published in the U.K. The inaugural winner was Naomi Klein for her book Doppelganger (FSG). This year, British doctor Rachel Clarke took home the prize for The Story of a Heart (Scribner), which depicts the story of two children connected by a heart transplant and offers a précis on the history of heart surgery and the evolution of organ transplant law in the U.K. In our starred review, PW described the book as "a tearjerker that doubles as a first-rate medical history" and "a marvel."

Publishers Weekly spoke with Van der Wouden and Clarke following the award ceremony in London last month.

Yael van der Wouden

How are you feeling about the win?

I'm completely out of this world. I have no idea which way is up and which way is down. I keep thinking that, like in a movie, there's going to be a hard cut and we're going to be standing next to that stage again, and then we do it all over again, and it's going to be a different version…and I'll still be thrilled.

What has surprised you most about the experience of publishing your first novel?

I've had this whole experience of hearing about readers I'd never thought would find my book actually finding it. A strange thing that has happened repeatedly and genuinely brings me so much joy is women who buy the book and take it home, then just leave it lying around. They don't immediately read it. And then their husbands pick it up and say, 'What's this?' And then they start reading it and they stay up for two days reading it. And then they won't stop talking to their wives about it. This has happened to my therapist's husband and, I think, to my editor's husband. And I keep hearing about these dads, about these husbands, who find the novel. And it just fills me with joy.

Is there anything that readers and critics sometimes get wrong about your work that you'd like to address?

There's no right or wrong way to interpret it. I come from the world of comparative literature, where there's no right or wrong way of reading a text. There's simply your interpretation, the historical context in which it was written, the social context in which it was written, and then the theory that applies to it. I think every single reader will take from the book what they want or what they need. I find it fascinating to hear people talk about the ending as a sad ending, and other readers talk about the ending as a happy ending, and people talk about Isabel as either a good or a bad character. Everybody has a different interpretation of it, and sometimes I feel like a little bit of an orange-haired psychiatrist, sort of sitting there like, 'Oh, I wonder what that says about you when you like this or that.' But we don't tell our readers that.

Your book has been popular with book clubs. Was that a surprise?

A lot of people read this book for book clubs. I think the academic in me is perpetually fascinated by book clubs. I'm taking it to my book club…but it makes me sad. I'm sad that I can't be a fly on the wall because I want to hear how people discuss it without me being present—I think people speak differently when I'm there.

Here's a chance to recommend any book that you fear might be overlooked by readers?

Absolutely: Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas—it's not to be missed!

Rachel Clarke

How does it feel to win?

I'm utterly overjoyed. Honestly, I think it's because it's not just a literary prize. A literary prize in its own right is extraordinary, but this is a prize that stands for everything I believe in. It stands for amplifying women's voices, for the principle that despite the fact that we live in 2025, there are structural ways in which women's voices are not heard and valued in the same way that men's are. And I think to have won this prize of all the prizes is a dream come true for me.

Are your readers primarily women or men?

That is a very good question and I, honestly, do not know the answer. Many believe that medical writing and nonfiction are read more by men than women, but I think all of that is nonsense. Does it matter? I have never been given or sought a gender breakdown of my readers and I wouldn't really want to because I don't write for a particular audience, I write for people and I write nonfiction that I think needs to be heard. Because it's important, it's about something that really matters to society and something that matters to all of us as people.

Naturally, medical writing should appeal across gender lines...

Medicine is an interesting hybrid of science and humanity. It walks the path between the two, and I like to imagine it has an appeal across the board. In the same way that care is not a female quality, it's a human quality, medicine and the experiences of healthcare professionals and patients are human. They're not male or female, they're human.

Have you encountered any readers or reviewers that get something wrong in what you're trying to write about?

Yes, yes. Because I'm a palliative care doctor, I care very, very deeply about trying to talk openly and honestly about death and dying, because these are subjects that still have a lot of taboo in modern society and are still very frightening to some people. So, often readers will be apprehensive about reading a book like The Story of a Heart because they think, 'Gosh, because it involves the death of a child, it must be depressing, it may be upsetting, it may be something that I'll struggle to read.'

How do you address those concerns?

What I have found professionally over the years that I've worked is there are staggering amounts of good things in life at the end of life. In fact, often it's more than at any other time—when time is running out—that you really appreciate what matters. It's true and people don't realize it. But I see every day at work just more kindness, compassion, love, strength, and courage. It's a daily privilege to work in palliative care and I think that is part of what I try to pour into my books.

So, when a reader is apprehensive because they think a book is dark, because it involves the subject matter of death, I like to believe that I defy their expectations. I like to surprise them and leave them genuinely moved. I like to remind them that since time on this earth is limited, that is the very thing that makes everything valuable.