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Since 1969, the Man Booker Prize has rewarded outstanding books published in the UK by young and older authors alike. Some of the remarkable women who have earned the prize are proud feminists, environmentalists, and fighting for equality.
There have been sixteen female winners so far, and one that’s even won twice:
1. Bernice Rubens
The first female winner of the Booker Prize was Welsh author Bernice Rubens. She won for The Elected Member in 1970, and was only the second person to win the Booker Prize. Rubens was educated at Cardiff High School for Girls and graduated from the University of Wales, Cardiff in 1947.
2. Nadine Gordimer
Also the 1991 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Nadine Gordimer is a South African author who penned The Conservationist; this novel won her the Booker Prize in 1974. Gordimer’s first adult fiction novel was published when she was just sixteen years old. In addition to writing, she was always very active in fighting for racial and economic equality in South Africa.
3. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was not only a novelist, but also a screenwriter. She was awarded the Booker prize in 1975 for her novel Heat and Dust, and has also won two Academy Awards for her screenwriting – she is the only person who has ever won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar.
4. Iris Murdoch
Known as one of the “50 Greatest British Writers since 1945” by The Times, Iris Murdoch won the Booker Prize for her philosophical novel The Sea, The Sea in 1978. Murdoch’s books frequently have characters, usually upper-middle-class males, caught in moral dilemmas or demonic male enchanters who impose their will on other characters.
5. Penelope Fitzgerald
In 1979, Penelope Fitzgerald won the Booker Prize for her novel Offshore. She worked for the BBC during World War II and collaborated with her husband on a magazine called World Review in the 1950s. Her literary career began in 1975 when she was 58 years old, and she published highly successful biographies, fiction and poems throughout her life.
6. Anita Brookner
Also an art historian, Anita Brookner was awarded the Booker Prize in 1984 for her novel Hotel du Lac. Brookner was the first female Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge, and earned her doctorate in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London in 1953.
7. Keri Hulme
Keri Hulme’s only novel The Bone People won her the Booker Prize in 1985. Hulme was the first New Zealander to win the Booker Prize and publicly identifies as aromantic, asexual and atheist.
8. Penelope Lively
In 1987, Penelope Lively’s novel Moon Tiger won her the Booker Prize. She was born in Egypt in 1933 and gained success through her many children’s books. Lively has also written for radio and was appointed the Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1989.
9. A.S. Byatt
Also a Times “50 Greatest British Writers since 1945,” Dame A.S. Byatt won the Booker Prize in 1990 for her novel Possession, which was made into a film in 2002. Byatt and her sister had a strained relationship because they were both novelists and their works were semi-biographical. She admires fellow winner Iris Murdoch and has written several critical studies on her.
10. Pat Barker
Known for her historical novels, Pat Barker won the Booker Prize for her war novel The Ghost Road in 1995. Her writing is often described as “direct, blunt, and plainspoken,” according to The Guardian. Barker’s well-known Regeneration trilogy explores World War I and was her attempt at switching from a feminist point of view and instead focusing on men because of the criticism she received for not doing so.
11. Arundhati Roy
Indian novelist Arundhati Roy was awarded the Booker Prize for The God of Small Things in 1997. Along with being a human rights and environmental activist, Roy wrote screenplays and documentaries. She was also featured on the 2014 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.
12. Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin won Canadian poet Margaret Atwood the Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood was added to Canada’s Walk of Fame and has won many awards for her work. Along with being an environmental activist, Atwood is also the inventor of the LongPen which allows writers to virtually sign books by signing on a touch-sensitive LCD screen that then sends a signal to a robotic arm to sign the book. This technology allows authors to sign books from anywhere in the world and be available for virtual signings from the comfort of their home.
13. Kiran Desai
In 2006, Indian novelist Kiran Desai won the Booker Prize for her widely-praised second novel The Inheritance of Loss. Desai also earned numerous awards for her first novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard which has received praise by fellow Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie. She also won a Berlin Prize Fellowship in 2013.
14. Anne Enright
Anne Enright’s novel The Gathering won her the Booker Prize in 2007. Although low-profile, Enright has won several awards and is widely praised for her writings. This Irish novelist focuses on family relationships, sex and Ireland’s difficult past. Enright was also a television producer and director of both adult and children’s programs, but quit to pursue writing, according to The Guardian.
15. Hilary Mantel
Dame Hilary Mantel is the only woman to be awarded the Booker Prize twice – her novels Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies won her the prize in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Mantel was diagnosed with the under-researched and commonly misdiagnosed disease endometriosis; she explains it in detail to The Guardian. She is also a patron of the Endometriosis SHE Trust, which you can read more about here: http://shetrust.org.uk/
16. Eleanor Catton
The latest female Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton won in 2013 for her historical novel The Luminaries. Described by the Daily Mail as “[2013]’s golden girl of fiction,” Catton has received critical acclaim for her work. Catton’s comments about the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand governments being “neo-liberal, profit-obsessed [and] very shallow” came with criticism from Prime Minister John Key who accused her of aligning with the Green Party and were responsible for numerous cartoons of “Cattongate.” Despite this, Catton gained respect by using her winnings from the NZ Post Book Award to establish the Horoeka/Ravenswood Grant in 2014 for emerging writers.
