Manchester lecturer wins Women's Prize for Fiction

Kamila Shamsie, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing, has won the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction for her seventh novel Home Fire.

It was the third time that Kamila had been nominated for the award, previously known as the Baileys Prize and Orange Prize.

Home Fire, a reworking of Sophocles' Greek tragedy Antigone, is about radicalisation and family loyalties. Sarah Sands, chair of judges, said the panel had chosen "the book which we felt spoke for our times".

Author Kate Mosse, the founder of the prize, hosted Wednesday's ceremony in central London.

The other shortlisted titles were:

• The Idiot - Elif Batuman
• The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - Imogen Hermes Gowar
• Sight - Jessie Greengrass
• When I Hit You - Meena Kandasamy
• Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward

The Women's Prize for Fiction was co-founded in 1996 by Kate Mosse, and is awarded annually to what judges consider the best novel of the year written in English by a female author.