Evie Wyld wins the 2021 Stella Prize!

The 2021 Stella Prize winner has just been unveiled as Evie Wyld, who won for her chilling and atmospheric novel The Bass Rock.

Evie Wyld (Photo by Urszula Soltys).

Telling the stories of three women over four centuries who lived near a large sea bound rock off the Scottish mainland, The Bass Rock was chosen from a strong shortlist that included books such as Laura Jean McKay’s The Animals in That Country and Louise Milligan’s Witness.

Wyld is no stranger to the Stella Prize, with her novel All the Birds, Singing being longlisted in 2014 before going on to win the Miles Franklin Literary Award later that year. She has also enjoyed wins and nominations for awards such as the International Dublin Literary Award, the Orange Prize for New Writers, the Costa Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction and many more.

The Stella Judges’ report praised The Bass Rock for its diverse cast of characters and its ability to surprise and confound the reader:

‘At once confronting, chaotic and charming, Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock is a perplexingly brilliant novel that will challenge and test the reader. Set across multiple time periods, and with three distinct narrative voices throughout, the book blurs the line between the past and the present, the real and the imagined, the natural and the unnatural world.’

The Stella Prize was established in 2012 to celebrate literature from women and non-binary writers. Wyld will take home $50,000 in prize money, courtesy of the Wilson Foundation.

Congratulations Evie Wyld for winning the 2021 Stella Prize!

Find out more about the Stella Prize here

The Bass Rock

by Evie Wyld

Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has for centuries watched over the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries the fates of three women are linked: to this place, to each other.

In the early 1700s, Sarah, accused of being a witch, flees for her life. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Ruth navigates a new house, a new husband and the strange waters of the local community. Six decades later, the house stands empty. Viv, mourning the death of her father, catalogues Ruth’s belongings and discovers her place in the past – and perhaps a way forward...

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Olivia Fricot

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