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Trinity graduate Virginia Evans has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction

Published 13:02 12 Jun 2026 BST

Hannah Cronolly

Trinity graduate Virginia Evans has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction

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Virginia Evans won the prize for her novel The Correspondent

Virginia Evans, who studied a master's degree in creative writing at Trinity College, has officially won the Women's Prize for Fiction for her incredible novel The Correspondent.

The American author sold her home to move her family to Dublin to study her degree at Trinity's Oscar Wilde Centre under Irish authors such as Kevin Power, Claire Keegan, and Eoin McNamee.

The Correspondent has hit the written world by storm; we can see why. It has become one of the most talked-about books of the last few years, deserving all the praise and then some.

The bestselling debut will be adapted into a film, starring and produced by Jane Fonda.

The novel follows 73-year old Sybil Van Antwerp, where readers get to know her life through the letters she sends to her friends, family, favourite authors, and pretty much anyone she chooses.

Sybil is stubborn and opinionated, and always unwavering in her belief in the power of the written word over modern technology. However, there is one letter that she has never sent. To finally post it, Sybil must re-examine one of the most painful periods of her life to find forgiveness within herself.

The Correspondent is a beautiful and heartwarming story about great joys, small tragedies, and unexpected second chances.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Virginia said, “Eoin McNamee was my overseer and my mentor for my thesis. We were working on my novel, and I remember him saying to me one time, ‘You have such good command of language and cadence, and your work is so distilled. And these are good things to have. But you are so unwilling to hurt your characters. You have to let them be hurt. You’re not here to be the judge of their decisions. You’re just there to be the storyteller. You have to let people do horrible things.’

"And that comes into my novel The Correspondent. That was so helpful for me.”

You can buy the bestselling debut here.

We're giving away paperback copies of The Correspondent in the latest issue of our Her Book Club newsletter.