Irish writer beats Jhumpa Lahiri to win top UK prize

First-time Irish novelist Eimear McBride beat five other authors including Pulitzer Prize winning Indian American writer Jhumpa Lahiri to win this year’s Baileys Prize, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman.

McBride’s debut 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.