Deirdre Madden awarded a 2024 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction

We are delighted to announce that Deirdre Madden is among this year's recipients of the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prizes. Deirdre Madden is a writer from Toomebridge, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The author of eight acclaimed novels, she has twice been a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2009, 1996) and has received numerous other awards and honors, including the Hennessy Literary Awards Hall of Fame (2014), the Somerset Maugham Award (1989), and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature (1980). 

"Deirdre Madden's novels bring to life the smallest movements of characters' impulses and thoughts, portraying the intricacies of human lives with compassion and effortless depth." - Windham-Campbell Prizes judges

The mission of the prizes is to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.

Lifelong partners Donald Windham and Sandy M. Campbell were avid book collectors, voracious readers, and friends with many of the most important literary figures of their time. Windham wrote memoirs, novels, plays, short stories, and a children’s book. Campbell was a stage actor who also penned unsigned book reviews for The New Yorker and contributed articles to Harper’s Magazine and other publications. The pair discussed the idea of creating an award to support writers for many years, inspired by Windham’s early struggles and the important role financial independence played in his later career as a writer. When Campbell passed away unexpectedly in 1988, Windham took on the responsibility for making this shared dream a reality.

For more information on the prizes, click here.