LONDON (AP) – Lisa McInerney’s debut novel “The Glorious Heresies” has won the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for fiction.
McInerney beat five other finalists with the funny, ferocious story of financial-crisis Ireland to take the 30,000 pound ($43,000) prize Wednesday.
McInerney first gained attention with a blog about working-class Irish life, written under the pen-name Sweary Lady, and the novel takes a similarly unflinching approach. Set amid the Cork underworld, its characters include a gangster, a sex worker feigning religious conversion, an accidental murderer and a 15-year-old drug dealer.
Lawyer Margaret Mountford, who chaired the judging panel, called McInerney “a fresh new voice.” Frances Gertler of the Foyles bookshop chain said the result was “a brave choice of winner by the least conventional and edgiest writer on the list.”
The annual award is open to female English-language writers from around the world.