Evaristo to chair Women's Prize 2021 panel

Bernardine Evaristo will chair the judging panel for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021.

The Booker winner will be joined by author Elizabeth Day, writer Nesrine Malik, presenter Vick Hope and news presenter Sarah-Jane Mee.

Evaristo said: “The Women’s Prize for Fiction is such an essential and exciting prize. I’m looking forward to chairing it this year, and to discovering a wide range of novels that will give me a strong sense of the preoccupations, styles and aesthetics of contemporary women’s fiction. I hope to be blown away by some exceptional novels and to discover some hidden gems that deserve more attention and a wider readership."

The £30,000 prize is awarded for the best full-length novel of the year written in English and published in the United Kingdom between 1st April 2020 and 31st March 2021.

Earlier this month, the prize announced its eligibility extends to "all women" where a woman is defined as "a cis woman, a transgender woman or anyone who is legally defined as a woman or of the female sex". Faber has asked organisers to review their decision and “consider the lived experience of now excluded writers" .

Public voting for the prize's Winner of Winners contest, marking the award's 25th anniversary, closes on 1st November with the result to be announced on 12th November.