Award Given to Female Writers to Address Gender Inequality in the World of Books

Books about the astonishing impact of the internet and artificial intelligence are among the finalists for a new award aimed at helping to address gender inequality in the publication of non-fiction works. According to the Associated Press, Naomi Klein, a Canadian author and activist, with a book on misinformation online, and Madhumita Morgia, a British journalist, with a work about life in the shadow of artificial intelligence, are among the six writers who reached the final stage of the inaugural award. This £30,000 prize, which has a 29-year history, is awarded annually to English-speaking female writers from various countries in the fiction genre. Safia Sinclair, a Jamaican poet and writer; Laura Cumming, a British writer and critic; Noreen Masood, a British writer; and Tiya Miles, an American author and researcher, are other finalists for this new award. Susanna Lipscomb, a British historian who chairs the judging panel, says, "Readers will never see the world from the perspective of art, history, landscape, politics, religion, or technology in the same way after reading these books." The winners of the non-fiction and fiction awards will be announced on June 13 (24 Khordad) at a ceremony in London. This award is a response to the gender imbalance in the world of books, where men buy more non-fiction works than women, male authors write more non-fiction books, and receive more awards. Research results show that while women purchase 59% of the books sold in the UK, men account for more than half of the adult non-fiction works purchased. Organizers of the award state that in 2022, only 26.5% of the non-fiction books reviewed in British newspapers were written by women, yet male authors claimed most of the non-fiction awards.