Madeline Miller has won the Orange Prize — the last ever Orange Prize, in fact. She won the £30,000 and the coveted ‘Bessie’ statue for her debut novel, The Song of Achilles. Joanna Trollope, Chair of Judges, said:
‘This is a more than worthy winner – original, passionate, inventive and uplifting. Homer would be proud of her.’
This was a turn up for the books. Miller was the 8/1 outsider according to William Hill’s odds. Gamblers and pundits had expected Cynthia Ozick to win. Literary prizes have developed a habit of defying expectations in recent months. For instance, this year’s Costa Prize went to Andrew Miller for his novel Pure, when Matthew Hollis’s life of Edward Thomas was thought to be a shoo-in.
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