Ruth Ozeki wins 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction | Sunday Observer

Ruth Ozeki wins 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction

9 July, 2022

There are a large number of awards for literature. But have you ever heard about a prize exclusively for female writers? Women’s prize for fiction or formerly known as the Orange and then the Baileys prize, is one such that confers awards only for female writers.

It was founded in 1996 in the United Kingdom in response to women having not been shortlisted for the Booker for the previous five years. Since then, it began presenting awards to “the best full-length novel of the year by a woman” written in English and published in the UK.

In this way, in its 27th year, it announced the 2022 winner on June 15 at a ceremony in Bedford Square Gardens, Central London. The winner was American-Canadian author Ruth Ozeki for her fourth novel, ‘The Book of Form and Emptiness.’

The ceremony was hosted by novelist, prize founder and director Kate Mosse, and the chair of judges, Mary Ann Sieghart, presented the £30,000 prize to the winner, endowed by an anonymous donor, alongside the Bessie — a limited- edition bronze figurine by Grizel Niven.

A truly original and masterful storyteller - Sieghart

When presenting the award Mary Ann Sieghart said: “In an extraordinary year for fiction written by women, and from an incredibly strong shortlist, we were thrilled to choose Ruth Ozeki’s ‘The Book of Form and Emptiness’, which stood out for its sparkling writing, warmth, intelligence, humour and poignancy.”

She added: “A celebration of the power of books and reading, it tackles big issues of life and death, and is a complete joy to read. Ruth Ozeki is a truly original and masterful storyteller.”

This is absurd - I don’t win things - Ozeki

Accepting the prize, Ozeki told the audience: “This is absurd - I don’t win things. It also feels so unbelievably random because these are some of the most amazing women writers I have ever met in my life.”

In her speech she thanked the women and women’s institutions who had supported her throughout her career. “I wanted to call out the names of the women who have supported me, because now more than ever this is a time that we need to speak out and rewrite the dominant narratives that have landed us into quite dire straits.”

Speaking to ‘The Bookseller’ at the ceremony, she said: “I don’t write novels to win prizes, nobody does, it would be a very stupid thing to do. In the media landscape that is so cacophonous and crowded, what prizes do is create an occasion for celebrating books. In a way it doesn’t really matter who wins.

“There’s an occasion for people to come together and appreciate the work that writers and readers do together. In that sense, I think writers are really important. Prizes like the Women’s Prize are particularly important - we need to create more occasions to bring women together, to support [them] in the creative work they do.”

With The Guardian she said she felt very grateful to have won the prize. She also added: “It’s quite random because any of the books on the long list and shortlist are completely worthy.”

Shortlisted books

The shortlist titles included six novels along with Ozeki’ book published by Canongate Books. They are bestseller Meg Mason’s ‘Sorrow & Bliss’ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), ‘The Island of Missing Trees’ by Elif Shafak (Penguin), Lisa Allen-Agostini’s ‘The Bread the Devil Knead’ (Myriad Editions), Louise Erdrich’s ‘The Sentence’ (Little, Brown) and Maggie Shipstead’s ‘Great Circle’ (Penguin).

The themes of them were diverse, from a book narrated by a tree to the experience of an early female aviator in the Antarctic.

Who is Ozeki?

Ruth Ozeki is a daughter of American and Japanese parents. She is also a film-maker, an English professor and a Zen Buddhist monk. She is affiliated with the Everyday Zen Foundation and lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she teaches creative writing at Smith College. She had been previously shortlisted for the Booker prize, for her 2013 novel ‘A Tale for the Time Being.’

According to Ruth’s publisher Canongate C.E.O. Jamie Byng, Ozeki is “a really remarkable human being”. He added: “What a generous and wise and thoughtful and appreciative woman she is - and she’s an absolutely brilliant writer too, which always helps.”

‘The Book of Form and Emptiness’

The prize winning book’s story follows a teenage boy named Benny Oh. One year after the death of his father, he starts to hear voices from the objects around him in his head. The noises only grow louder when his distraught mother begins hoarding.

In a bid to cope, he seeks solace in the silence of his local library. Dealing with themes of life and death, the book explores how Benny deals with his grief. In a philosophical way, it tackles the issues of grief, loneliness, relationships, attachment and loss.

‘The Independent’ praised the book saying it is “a deeply moving story of family, loss and love, and a provocative lesson in mindfulness and the art of mastering inner peace”.

As per the author Ruth, she began to write the book meditating on people’s relationships to objects while clearing out her deceased parents’ house.

“As children, things always are speaking to us and we are always making things speak,” she added. “And [I was] trying to get back in touch with that imaginary world, what it’s like to be a child and see the whole world as being alive,” she explained of the idea behind her novel.

Judging panel and aim of the prize

As said earlier, the chair of the judging panel was Mary Ann Sieghart. The other members were the journalist and editor Lorraine Candy, the author Dorothy Koomson, the journalist and author Anita Sethi and the broadcaster and writer Pandora Sykes. All these people are entirely made up of women, as “the founders wanted to celebrate women’s critical views as well as their creative achievements,” the prize website says.

What is the aim of the prize? We already know about that. Anyway, the prize’s website describes it: “The aim is always to celebrate women’s creative achievements and international writing, whilst also stimulating debate about gender and writing, gender and reading, and how the publishing and reviewing business works.”

Though the award was founded in 1996, the idea for it came about in 1992. It was when a group of booksellers, journalists, librarians and others in the British publishing industry set out to do something about the fact that prior to that year, only 10% of the novelists shortlisted for the Booker Prize had been women — despite the fact that 60% of the books on the market were written by women.

This was how the group initiated the new prize to recognize female fiction writers and inspire more readers, especially men, to pick up books written by women. Anyway, since its founding, the Women’s Prize for Fiction has become one of the top awards in the literary field.

It is also noteworthy to mention about the previous awardees. The 2021 winner of the prize was English author Susanna Clarke for her book “Piranesi”, about a lonely figure living in a place of wonders referred to as the House, who discovers dark secrets. Other past winners include Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones and Maggie O’Farrell.

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