American Wins Orange Prize
Lionel (born Margaret Ann) Shriver won the Orange Prize for the stunning We Need to Talk About Kevin, which deals with a mother's search for the reason her son becomes a murderer. The novel deals with many taboos for women: ambivalence about motherhood, dislike of one's own child and whether killers are born or made. The story unfolds in a series of letters from the mother to Kevin's father, from whom she is separated, in the aftermath of the killings. There are also a couple of unexpected twists. Shriver talks about writing "Kevin" here.
The £30,000 Orange Prize is awarded annually to outstanding fiction by women.