UK Author Ali Smith won the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel How to be Both. Her work has already made her winner of the prizes including the Costa novel award and the Goldsmiths, Saltire Literary Book of the Year and shortlisting for the Man Booker.
How to be Both depicts the stories of a teenage girl in modern-day Cambridge and a 15th-century Italian artist,. It is divided in two parts – 1st part is told from the point of view of George, a 16 year-old girl grieving for her mother; another is told by a 15th century Italian painter, Francesco del Cossa, of talkative sort who has fallen to earth, or shot through time, to look down on her in spirit.
One of the judges, Shami Chakrabarti describes it as a work that will still be read in 100 years. In a statement, Chakrabarti called How to Be Both a “tender, brilliant and witty novel of grief, love, sexuality and shape-shifting identity”
About the Prize
- Baileys Prize was launched in 1996 and is awarded annually and celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.
- The winner receives a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a ‘Bessie’, created by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.
