Canadian author Naomi Klein has won the first Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.
The 54-year-old activist and filmmaker, known for her criticism of modern economics, took home the award in its first year at a ceremony on Thursday at Bedford Square Gardens in London.
She was nominated when American author VV Ganeshananthan won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for her second novel, Brotherless Night, about a family torn apart by the civil war in Sri Lanka.
Klein won the award for Doppelgänger: A Journey into the Looking Glass. The book is about a woman with different views who is often confused with the author and takes her into a world of “conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and demagogic crooks.”
She and Ganeshananthan will each receive a prize of £30,000.
Klein, who was a guest speaker at a Labour Party conference during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as leader, is also the author of the books No Logo: Taking Aim At The Brand Bullies and This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate.
Her 2007 bestseller The Shock Doctrine argues that global corporations have exploited major disasters to force social and financial change to their advantage. The book also won the first Warwick Prize for Writing.
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, chair of the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction judging panel, said: “This brilliant and multi-layered analysis demonstrates humour, insight and expertise.
“Klein’s writing style is both deeply personal and impressively comprehensive.
“Doppelgänger is a courageous, humane and optimistic call to arms that takes us beyond black and white, beyond right and left, and invites us instead to embrace the spaces in between.”
For her win, Klein will also receive a limited edition artwork called “The Charlotte,” donated by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.
Ganeshananthan, who comes from a Sri Lankan family, was previously shortlisted for the Women’s Prize (then Orange Prize) for her 2008 film Love Marriage, which was about the Tamil diaspora.
Born in 1980, the journalist was also vice president of the South Asian Journalists Association and taught an MFA course at the University of Minnesota.
Monica Ali, chair of the Women’s Prize for Fiction jury, said: “Brotherless Night is a brilliant, gripping and deeply moving novel that testifies to the intimate and epic tragedies of Sri Lanka’s civil war.
“In rich, evocative prose, Ganeshananthan creates a vivid sense of time and place and an indelible cast of characters.
“Her commitment to complexity and clear moral scrutiny combined with compelling storytelling make Brotherless Night a masterpiece of historical fiction.”
Ganeshananthan receives a bronze statue named Bessie, created and donated by artist Grizel Niven.
