American A.M. Homes wins Women's Prize for Fiction

U.S. writer A.M. Homes has won the £30,000 ($47,770 Cdn) Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel May We Be Forgiven, a satire of modern American life.

New York-based Homes won the annual award, formerly known as the Orange Prize, on Wednesday in London.

May We Be Forgiven charts the increasingly out-of-control life of Harry, a middle-aged Richard Nixon studies professor, and his relationship with a successful but volatile brother.

"It was so fresh and so funny — darkly funny — and so unexpectedly moving," said actor Miranda Richardson, who chaired the judging panel.

Homes triumphed in a field that included two-time Booker Prize-winner Hilary Mantel and past Orange Prize-winners Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver. She is the fifth consecutive American writer to win the prize. 

A creative writing teacher at Princeton University, Homes is the author of This Book Will Save Your Life and the controversial novel The End of Alice, told from a pedophile's point of view.  She was also a writer-producer of the Showtime series The L Word and the screenwriter behind a planned HBO show called The Hamptons.

The Women’s Prize in Fiction is awarded each year to "celebrate excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world." This year’s edition was supported by private donors — including Cherie Blair and writer Joanna Trollope — after telecom company Orange ended its 17-year sponsorship last year.

A new sponsor, Baileys cream liqueur, will support the prize for a three-year term beginning in 2014.

Canadian writer Sheila Heti was named to the long list for the 2013 prize, but did not make the finalists, which were:

• Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel.
• Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.
• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.
• N-W by Zadie Smith.
• Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple.