Inverness writer Ali Smith scoops £30,000 Baileys Prize
INVERNESS-BORN author Ali Smith has won the 2015 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, which comes with a £30,000 cash award, for her sixth novel How to Be Both.
The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction is the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, and was previously known as the Orange Prize.
Former Inverness High School pupil Smith, who now lives in Cambridge, was twice shortlisted for the Orange Prize, but this is the first time she has been a winner.
It is the latest success for the much acclaimed How To Be Both, which has a split narrative set in the modern day and Renaissance Italy.
It has already won Smith the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize, the £5000 novel category in the 2014 Costa Book Awards and the Fiction Book of the Year in the Saltire Society Awards, which comes with a £1000 prize.
The book was also shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize and the Folio Prize.
Smith was presented with the Baileys Prize and the "Bessie", a limited edition bronze figurine, at an awards ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London on Wednesday, hosted by broadcaster, author and DJ, Lauren Laverne.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, chaired the judging panel which also included writers Laura Bates, Grace Dent and Helen Dunmore and Channel 4 news presenter Cathy Newman.
Chakrabarti summed up the panel’s view of How to Be Both as a "tender, brilliant and witty novel of grief, love, sexuality and shape-shifting identity."
Syl Saller, chief marketing officer with Baileys’ parent company Diageo, congratulated Smith on her success.
"How to Be Both reflects the brilliance and originality that the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction proudly celebrates," Saller commented.
"This year’s shortlist showcased an outstanding variety of female talent and Baileys is passionate about working with the Prize to share their extraordinary works with more people than ever before. Ali follows in the footsteps of 19 brave and talented Women’s Prize winners, and she is an inspiration for aspiring female writers all over the world."
How to Be Both is published by Hamish Hamilton.
