Harper's Bazaar is delighted to announce a new partnership with The Women's Prize Trust, the extraordinary charity working to create gender equity in the literary world and the organisation behind its fiction and non-fiction prizes, to celebrate its landmark 30th year.
To mark the anniversary, the trust will be awarding a special honour – 'The Women's Prize Outstanding Contribution Award' – to be given to a living female novelist in recognition of their career and the impact they have made on the world of women's writing.
The recipient will be announced on 4 June and will be honoured with a very special dinner, co-hosted by Bazaar at the Doyle Collection’s Bloomsbury Hotel on 10 June. The winner will also receive £100,000 prize money and be commemorated with a special sculpture, presented on 12 June at the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer party in London, alongside the winners of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction and Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.
Those in contention for this new accolade will be any longlisted, shortlisted or winners of the prize from the past three decades, who have published a minimum of five books. Unlike the fiction and non-fiction prizes, there will be no publicised long or short list. It will be decided upon via a closed judging procedure.
Tasked with deciding this worthy winner is the novelist and non-fiction author Kate Mosse, the founder and director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, who will chair a judging panel featuring former judges from the past three years: Dame Gillian Beer, the academic and writer; Scarlett Curtis, the writer, activist and trustee of the Women’s Prize Trust board; Bonnie Greer, the playwright, author and critic; and Vick Hope, the broadcaster and host of the Women’s Prize Bookshelfie podcast.
"As we prepare to announce the 30th winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, what better time to look back through our history?" says Mosse. "In a world where women’s voices are increasingly being silenced, and where the arts themselves are under attack, it is crucially important that we stand together to honour those whose brilliance, skill, dedication and inspiration make such a difference to our lives. Books encourage empathy, they help us to stand in other people’s shoes, and to discover worlds other than our own."
