AM Homes’ May We Be Forgiven has won the Women’s Fiction Prize, beating a strong field that included Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver and Kate Atkinson.
Homes, who is an American writer, is something of an unknown in this country (certainly compared to Smith and Mantel). On receiving the prize, she said, ‘it’s my nature to think about big ideas and my gender shouldn’t prevent me from doing that.’ Her work concerns modern America. Sleepy academic types are disturbed. The normal vanishes. Homes has been compared to Jonathan Franzen, among others. Click here to find out if the comparison is an insult to Homes, an insult to Franzen, or simply a fair observation.

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