Tayari Jones Wins 2019 Women's Fiction Prize

American writer Tayari Jones won the £ 30,000 Women's Fiction Prize for her fourth "heartbreaking" novel An American wedding (One world).

Professor Kate Williams, 2019 Chair, presented the author with the £ 30,000 prize and the limited edition bronze "Bessie" figure at a prize-giving ceremony organized by the novelist and founder of the Kate Mosse Award at Bedford Square Gardens this Wednesday June).

Jones, the bookmakers' fifth favorite to win a 8/1 rating on Monday, defeated Anna Burns, winner and winner of the Man Booker Award, in the running for his third novel Dairy (Faber)

The judges praised Jones' timely comment on modern American life. Williams called An American wedding, follows Celestial and Roy, two newlyweds, while their life is being derailed when Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years in prison for a heavenly crime knows that he did not commit, an extremely portrayal intimacy of a marriage broken by racial injustice.

"It's a story of love, loss and loyalty, the resilience of the human spirit painted on a great political canvas – which illuminates America today. We all loved this brilliant book. It is heartbreaking and moving, but there is also hope. We all loved it. It's a truly unforgettable book. We just hope everyone will read it, "Williams said. "It's really beautiful, it's really bright and the voices are very immediate. She also uses the form of the letter for a rather dramatic effect. "

Professor Kate Williams presents the award to Tayari Jones

The novel, which has sold 14,310 copies for all editions and is the first US winner since 2013, received a boost during the preselection, but Williams said her role as president Judges consisted of ensuring factors such as sales and the winner's star. the endorsements did not play a part.

An American wedding marks the first-ever Oneworld Award for the Women's Fiction Prize. Juliet Mabey of Oneworld obtained the rights of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth (excluding Canada and Australasia) on An American wedding in a five-way auction last April for a five-figure sum.

Oprah Winfrey named An American wedding a selection from the Oprah Reading Club last year. Barack Obama said the novel was "a moving representation of the effects of an unjustified conviction on a young African-American couple" and selected it as one of his summer readings of 2018. Last month, the American actress and "precarious creator", Issa Rae, opted for the film rights of Jones's third novel Sparrow Silver. Jones said:An American wedding is my discussion book, Silver Sparrow is my heart An auction for UK rights is underway.

Mabey said, "We have a reputation for finding those voices and fighting for them, we brought her here and we organized a full program for her, she made the news of Channel 4, the prison of Brixton, Five Live, the Channel 4 news podcast We love trying to create profiles because, obviously, you do not know if you are going to win.I have been very happy for it because she has managed to integrate the universal into the staff and that it is still very effective.In the same way that Paul Beatty used satire to report racial use problems in America, she uses a situation that can happen to anyone, in a way that we could all identify with. "

Sculminating at The bookstore, Jones said: "As an American, I am very happy to receive an award on the international stage.American literature is often criticized for its too insularity and I am convinced that incarceration is a problem Like tonight, I think women publish the majority of books but we do not win the majority of the prizes. "

Speaking on the representation of women's voices, Jones said that despite the Women's Award, "we still have some way to go."

"This award is so respected, which says a lot about the change in the esteem of female writing.This is not seen as a niche prize, but as an international prize. that we still have a way to go, there is an idea that if women like that, it should not be rigorous and I think we are fighting this, or against the idea that women's lives do not not the subject of many publications, unless it is a literature on suffering, but I think we stick to that, "Jones said. "Have you seen the shortlist, have you seen the diversity of ideas, styles?" This list augurs, in my opinion, very auspicious for the future. to be on the list and, of course, I am delighted to win, but I have been humiliated to be included. "

Published in the United States by Algonquin, Jones congratulated the independents for defending a diverse literature and thanked the booksellers for storing his award-winning book. "I think independent publishers are following their hearts, they are not following market trends, they are looking at a book and they think" it's a book that should be in the world ", more than" that's it. " is a book that we can sell a lot of copies of, "they are investing in literature as an agent of change.I am delighted and be on One Moon with Oneworld," Jones said. "One thing I would say to booksellers and publishers, I know we're getting a lot of negative information about the fact that the book is dying, they're telling you that the novel is dying, they're telling you say that a little book is going to drown you in the bathtub, I think that if you are black, it's as if a small racist group was going to drown you in the bathtub.But the literature persists.Booksellers and publishers are those who have weathered the storm and I am very grateful to them. "

Last year's winner, Kamila Shamsie's Fire house (Bloomsbury), jumped over 201% in volume week after the announcement of the price last June and sold 71,136 copies in total.

Bea Carvalho, a buyer of Waterstones Fiction, said the "important" book would spark conversations for a long time. She said, "The strength of the selection this year reflects just how remarkable the past year has been for women's writing: it has not been easy for judges to choose a winner, but we are delighted to have chosen the surprisingly moving choice of Tayari Jones. novel. A Master Class in Characterization – An American marriage manages to be deeply intimate and personal, while portraying a flawless portrait of modern American society as a whole. It is an important book that will not fail to provoke long discussions. We are delighted that the 2019 Women's Award continues the conversation and we look forward to sharing this great book with many other customers. "

Journalist and critic Arifa Akbar, author and columnist Dolly Alderton, activist and psychotherapist Leyla Hussein and digital entrepreneur Sarah Wood have joined the author and historian Williams on the jury. Williams said the "passionate" judgment lasted more than four hours and the panel was quick to share his views. "They are all winners and they have all been passionate," she said. All the books on the shortlist were very different, but Williams said the judges found a common denominator in asking what it meant to be free and engage in a common story.

Jones, an MFA faculty member at Rutgers and a graduate of Spelman College, Arizona State University and the University of Iowa, becomes the fifth woman of color to win this award after Shamsie's Fire house (Bloomsbury) in 2018 and Andrea Levy's Small island (Title), Zadie Smith's On the beauty (Penguin) and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche Half of a yellow sun (HarperCollins) winner between 2004 and 2007.

Burns Dairy (Faber) missed the trophy alongside Pat Barker's The silence of the girls (Hamish Hamilton), first author of Oyinkan Braithwaite's My sister, the serial killer (Atlantic), Ordinary people by Diana Evans (Chatto & Windus) and previous winner Madeline Miller with Circe (Bloomsbury).

In addition to the announcement of the recipient of the Women's Fiction Prize, budding novelist Helen Rogers has been named winner of the Grazia Women's Prize / First Chapter Award for Unpublished Writers.

The award was supported by three sponsors – Baileys, Fremantle and NatWest – after adopting a new sponsorship model, opting for a family of sponsors from different sectors rather than creating a partnership with a single company.