Taking on uncanny relevance this year, this austere story of one man’s isolation explores profound questions of freedom
News: ‘Mind-bending’ Piranesi wins Women’s prize
This year’s Women’s prize produced a notably strong shortlist, led by Brit Bennett’s landmark saga of racism and family in the US, The Vanishing Half; along with Patricia Lockwood’s hilariously barbed satire of internet domination, No One is Talking About This, and Yaa Gyasi’s thoughtful exploration of science, faith and generational trauma, Transcendent Kingdom. It also spotlit Claire Fuller’s quietly brilliant portrayal of English outsiders, Unsettled Ground, and a searing Barbadian debut, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones.
But it’s a delight to see the award go to Susanna Clarke’s triumphantly unusual second novel Piranesi, which begins as the diary of a man trapped in a vast mysterious mansion, in which an ocean rises and falls. He is dreamily content there, with birds, statues and his own scribblings for company, believing himself alone in the world except for visits from a well-dressed Other, who brings vitamin pills and appears to be studying him.
