Ruth Ozeki wins the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022
Ruth Ozeki has won the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction for The Book of Form and Emptiness.
After his father dies, Benny Oh finds he can hear objects talking: teapots, marbles and sharpened pencils, babbling in anger or distress. His mother, struggling to support their household alone, starts collecting things to give her comfort. Overwhelmed by the clamour of all the stuff, Benny seeks refuge in the beautiful silence of the public library. There, a book reaches out to him. Not just any book: his own book. And a very important conversation begins
Chair of Judges Mary Ann Sieghart, said: ‘In an extraordinary year for fiction written by women, and from an incredibly strong shortlist, we were thrilled to choose Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness, which stood out for its sparkling writing, warmth, intelligence, humour and poignancy. A celebration of the power of books and reading, it tackles big issues of life and death, and is a complete joy to read. Ruth Ozeki is a truly original and masterful storyteller.’
In her review of the novel, Readings bookseller Tristen Brudy says that The Book of Form and Emptiness is ‘a strange and compelling novel about loss, creativity, difference, and the power of the written word. Ozeki masterfully moves from whimsy to beauty to darkness and back again. I often did not know whether to laugh or to cry (and, admittedly, did both). It is the kind of book you get lost in for days or, considering its length at 550 pages, even weeks. Ozeki’s latest is a challenging, rewarding and unexpected work.’
The Book of Form and Emptiness was shortlisted alongside five other brilliant works: The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini Myriad, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, and The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak.
As the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Ozeki receives prize money of £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.
