Virginia Evans has just won the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her debut novel The Correspondent. Published last year, the epistolary book has become a word-of-mouth global bestseller.
Rather than centring on a cynical woman in her twenties, as much of the literary scene of late, The Correspondent is a quietly powerful story about a retired divorcee in her late seventies. Sybil corresponds entirely through letters, writing to her children abroad, an endearing elderly neighbour, and her most respected authors (including Kazuo Ishiguro and Joan Didion).
