A Girl is a Half-formed Thing wins the Baileys Prize

Irish author Eimear McBride has won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction with her debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. It took McBride nine years to find a publisher willing to take a risk on her very original novel but the book has already been awarded the £10,000 Goldsmith's Prize for original fiction and The Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year award before scooping the £30,000 Bailey’s Prize. McBride said that she hopes that the success of her book would encourage publishers to be more adventurous in choosing what to publish.

A Girl is a Half-formed Thing tells the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour. The book touches on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma. The Baileys judges said “It was a really astonishing book. We felt that from the first time we read it - it stood out from the crowd. It was very unlike anything else we read. It's incredibly original. It has a raw energy we all responded to. It has real lyrical qualities even though the subject matter can sometimes be so shocking”.