LONDON — English writer Rose Tremain won Britain’s Orange Prize for fiction by women Wednesday with a novel about an Eastern European migrant in Britain.
The Road Home is Tremain’s 10th novel and follows the character of Lev, who arrives in Britain with no English and little money.
Kirsty Lang, the judges’ chair, said the novel was a ‘‘fantastic exercise in empathy.’’
‘‘She succeeded in putting herself in the head of an Eastern European migrant in contemporary Britain. She managed to tell the story in a very powerful way. It’s a male character ... in his 40s. She absolutely gets inside his head,’’ she said.
British author Rose Tremain poses with her prize winning book at the Orange
Broadband awards ceremony in London Wednesday. (Max Nash~Getty Images)
Tremain beat five finalists including two North American writers nominated for their first novels. Montreal-based Heather O’Neill was nominated for Lullabies for Little Criminals; Patricia Wood, a Ph.D. student at the University of Hawaii, was nominated for Lottery.
Tremain wins $60,000 and a bronze statue by artist Grizel Niven. The award’s full title is the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction after its sponsor, telecommunications company Orange, and is awarded only to women authors.
The prize is in its 13th year. Previous winners include Zadie Smith for On Beauty in 2006, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Half of a Yellow Sun last year.
AP
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