Doppelganger by Guardian US columnist Naomi Klein has become the inaugural winner of the Women’s prize for nonfiction, while Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan has been named winner of the fiction prize.
Both books look at how people get swept up in extremism: Doppelganger uses the fact that Klein is regularly confused with feminist turned conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf as a jumping off point for an exploration of truth in politics, discussing populist figures such as Steve Bannon and Donald Trump. Meanwhile Brotherless Night, mostly set in Jaffna during the Sri Lankan civil war, is about a girl who dreams of becoming a doctor before war breaks out in her country and those around her begin to engage with violent political ideologies.
Historian Suzannah Lipscomb, who chaired the nonfiction judging panel, described Doppelganger as a “brilliant and layered analysis” that “demonstrates humour, insight and expertise”. She and her fellow judges, writer Kamila Shamsie, fair fashion campaigner Venetia La Manna, writer and academic Nicola Rollock and biographer Anne Sebba, admired Klein’s “both deeply personal and impressively expansive” writing. “Doppelganger is a courageous, humane and optimistic call-to-arms,” she added, “that moves us beyond black and white, beyond right and left, inviting us instead to embrace the spaces in between.”
“There’s a debate to be had about how liberals and leftists should relate to those drawn into the ecosystem of Wolf, Bannon and Trump,” William Davies wrote in his Guardian review of Klein’s winning book. “Doppelganger leans towards understanding more and condemning less, without ever romanticising those beholden to conspiracy theories.”
American author Ganeshananthan’s second novel – her first, Love Marriage, was longlisted for the 2009 Women’s prize, then known as the Orange prize – is “an unforgettable account of a country and a family coming undone”, according to Guardian reviewer Yagnishsing Dawoor.
Chair of the fiction judging panel, novelist Monica Ali, described Brotherless Night as “a masterpiece of historical fiction”.
Ali, who judged alongside writer Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, author and illustrator Laura Dockrill, actor Indira Varma, and presenter and author Anna Whitehouse, called Ganeshananthan’s novel “brilliant, compelling and deeply moving”, praising the way it “bears witness to the intimate and epic-scale tragedies of the Sri Lankan civil war”.
Brotherless Night beat The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy and River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure. Shortlisted alongside Doppelganger were Laura Cumming’s Thunderclap, Noreen Masud’s A Flat Place, Tiya Miles’s All That She Carried, Madhumita Murgia’s Code Dependent and Safiya Sinclair’s How to Say Babylon. Klein will win £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the “Charlotte”, both gifted by the Charlotte Aitken Trust, while Ganeshananthan will also receive £30,000, anonymously endowed, and the “Bessie”, a bronze statuette created by the artist Grizel Niven.
The Women’s prize for fiction, which is now in its 29th year, describes itself as “the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world”. It was set up in 1995, in the wake of an all-male Booker prize shortlist in 1991. The nonfiction prize was announced last year, after research commissioned by the Women’s Prize Trust found that female nonfiction writers are less likely to be reviewed or win prizes than their male counterparts.
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The Women’s prize for fiction has been won by authors including Zadie Smith, Ali Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Last year’s winner was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.