The Winner of the Stella Prize 2021

The Winner of the Stella Prize for Women's writing 2021 is The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld.
'The Bass Rock is a novel that weaves together the lives of three women across four centuries. It explores the legacy of male violence and the ways in which these traumas ripple and reverberate across time and place for three central female characters. Each woman’s choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men in their lives. But in sisterhood there is the hope of survival and new life'. 

The judges commented -

'The Bass Rock is a consuming and perplexing book, one that forces the reader to think and engage with the unique narrative structure, but in a way that feels effortless, so engaged are you by the story. This is a novel that demonstrates the author’s versatility of style, with the separate narrative parts each having an individual voice. And yet, at no point does the book feel disjointed. Instead, it is as though Evie Wyld has chosen each and every word with precision, building a novel that is a true work of art'.
Evie has previously won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2014 for her novel All the birds, singing. 

For more information and to see the other shortlisted titles go to The Stella Prize website.

Robyn