American author Madeline Miller has won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction with her debut novel The Song of Achilles (Bloomsbury).
2012 marks the seventeenth year of the Orange Prize, which celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.
At an awards ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London – hosted by Orange Prize for Fiction Co-Founder and Honorary Director, Kate Mosse – the 2012 Chair of Judges, Joanna Trollope, presented the author with the £30,000 prize and the ‘Bessie’, a limited edition bronze figurine. Both are anonymously endowed.
Joanna Trollope, Chair of Judges, said: This is a more than worthy winner — original, passionate, inventive and uplifting. Homer would be proud of her.
The Orange Prize for Fiction was set up in 1996 to celebrate and promote fiction written by women throughout the world to the widest range of readers possible. The Orange Prize is awarded to the best novel of the year written in English by a woman.
Miller, who spent 10 years writing the book while working as a Greek and Latin teacher, said she was overwhelmed and humbled by the £30,000 Prize.
Madeline Miller will be at Twickenham Library today, Thursday 31 June, for a reading and Q&A session. You can find out more or book a ticket to the event here.
Get involved
Has your reading group read Song of Achilles? Tell readers what you thought here.
Read Hertfordshire Book Group’s Song of Achilles review.
Warwickshire’s Super Orange Reading Group voted on their own winner – here’s who they voted for.
Photo credit: AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
