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Trabucco Zerán wins £25k British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding
Chilean writer Alia Trabucco Zerán’s When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold (And Other Stories) has won the £25,000 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.
Trabucco Zerán’s book, translated by Sophie Hughes, was announced as the winner of the non-fiction award by chair of the jury Professor Patrick Wright during a celebration at the British Academy on 26th October.
When Women Kill forensically examines four homicides committed by everyday Chilean women over the course of the 20th century. Taking these four cases in Chile as her starting point, Trabucco Zerán introduces a perspective to the study of women murderers.
The author, whose début novel The Remainder (Coffee House Press) was shortlisted in 2019 for the Man Booker International Prize and who originally trained as a lawyer, spent many years researching the book, blending true crime writing with the art of the critical essay and investigative memoir. “The result is a compelling narrative that not only explores the circumstances around the four killings – so high-profile that they went on to inspire plays, poems and films – but also the reaction from the media and the judgement of a patriarchal society,” prize organisers said.
Wright, Emeritus Professor of Literature and History at King’s College and a fellow of the British Academy, said: “When Women Kill is a highly original and beautifully written work, which uncovers uncomfortable truths about a society and its attitudes to female homicides. This is a timely and important work that invites the reader to reconsider the relationship between gender and violence – not just in Chile but globally. Trabucco Zerán has applied her legal training to the creation of this outstanding book, reminding us that research takes many forms and is not only the preserve of the academic world.”
Professor Julia Black, president of the British Academy, added: “On behalf of the British Academy, it is my honour to congratulate Alia Trabucco Zerán for bringing to our attention a story that will resonate universally, and for reminding us how excellent writing and exemplary research are an essential part of every compelling read.”
Trabucco Zerán will receive £25,000 for winning the prize. Each of the shortlisted writers will receive £1,000 – a new addition for the 10th edition of the prize.
The other shortlisted books were The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell’s Quest to End Deafness by Katie Booth (Scribe UK), Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich by Harald Jähner (WH Allen), Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village by Marit Kapla (Allen Lane), Horizons: A Global History of Science by James Poskett (Viking) and Kingdom of Characters: A Tale of Language, Obsession and Genius in Modern China by Jing Tsu (Allen Lane).
