Ali Smith Wins 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize For Fiction

Three cheers for Ali Smith, the winner of the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel How to be Both. Sponsored by Britain’s favorite cream-based liqueur (“a brand loved by women”), the BWPFF aims to cast female writers into the literary limelight — a glittering circle of prizewinners that tends to suffer from a notable lack of estrogen. Before receiving the BWPFF, How to be Both had lost out on the Man Booker Prize and the Folio Prize, which ended up going to Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Akhil Sharma’s Family Life respectively.

Past recipients of the BWFF include Lionel Shriver in 2005 for We Need to Talk About Kevin, and Zadie Smith for her 2006 novel, On Beauty. This year, Smith bested Rachel Cusk, Laline Paull, Kamila Shamsie, Anne Tyler, and Sarah Waters to win the £30,000 prize (equivalent to about 2,088 bottles of Bailey’s Original Irish Cream).

The Shortlist:

Rachel Cusk, Outline
Laline Paull, The Bees
Kamila Shamsie, A God in Every Stone
Ali Smith, How to be Both
Anne Tyler, A Spool of Blue Thread
Sarah Waters, The Paying Guests

Ali Smith with her award for How to be Both #baileysprize @PenguinUKBooks @HamishH1931pic.twitter.com/MsUIuRwudH

 — @BaileysPrize