Kingsolver wins Women’s Prize for Fiction for ‘Demon Copperhead’

US author Barbara Kingsolver has won the 2023 Women’s Prize for fiction, worth £30,000 (A$56,000), for her 10th novel, Demon Copperhead (Faber).

Kingsolver is the first writer to have won the award twice, after previously winning in 2010 with her novel The Lacuna (Faber). Demon Copperhead is a reimagining of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, set in the Appalachian mountains in Virginia in the US.

Chair of judges Louise Minchin said Kingsolver ‘has written a towering, deeply powerful and significant book’. ‘In a year of outstanding fiction by women, we made a unanimous decision on Demon Copperhead as our winner. Brilliant and visceral, it is storytelling by an author at the top of her game. An exposé of modern America, its opioid crisis and the detrimental treatment of deprived and maligned communities, Demon Copperhead tackles universal themes—from addiction and poverty, to family, love, and the power of friendship and art—it packs a triumphant emotional punch, and it is a novel that will withstand the test of time.’

The prize is presented annually to the best novel of the year written in English by a woman. Kingsolver was chosen as the winner from a shortlist of six, announced in April. Last year’s winner was Ruth Ozeki for her fourth novel The Book of Form and Emptiness (Text).

Category: International news