Women's Prize for Non-Fiction 'amplifies female voices'

BBC News

2 days ago

A palliative care doctor shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction says the prestigious book award "amplifies" the importance of female voices.Dr Rachel Clarke, from Oxford, and MP Yuan Yang, who represents Earley and Woodley in Berkshire, spoke to BBC South ahead of Thursday's award ceremony in London. Both women said they were delighted to be on the shortlist and hoped it would bring new readers to their work. "The voices of women in non-fiction are often overlooked and eclipsed by male voices," said Dr Clarke.
"This prize amplifies their voices and says to girls and women that their stories matter."Dr Clarke said she was compelled to write The Story of a Heart when she read newspaper articles about nine-year-old Max who received a heart donation from a girl called Keira - also nine - who had suffered catastrophic injuries in a car accident.She said she approached Keira's family incredibly carefully. "I knew they would be entrusting an incredibly personal story to me. I wanted to honour the little girl that Keira was," Dr Clarke said. The book follows the medical journey that ultimately saved Max's life and tells the stories of those who helped along the way: doctors, nurses and paramedics.
Dr Clarke, who specialises in palliative care, draws comparisons between being a good doctor and being a good author. "As a doctor you have to care about people, you have to listen to their stories and you have to communicate stories back to them," she said. "One of the saddest things is when the patient thinks the story of their life is over. Sometimes you can help people realise that life still can be worth living with a terminal illness because it absolutely can."
Yuan Yang's book, Private Revolutions, Coming of Age in a New China, tells the stories of four women growing up in the '80s and '90s in a country that was rapidly changing. Ms Yang, who won her seat for Labour last year, started writing it while working in Beijing as a journalist. "Some of the women I met had stories that were so immense that they couldn't be captured in newspaper reporting," she said. "I wanted to explore what it's like to live through such a huge economic and social transformation."Ms Yang, the first Chinese-born British MP, moved to the UK when she was four. She said she often considered what her life would have been like had her parents chosen to remain in China."I'm really glad they settled down in Reading and gave me and my brother a more stable life. For many of my contemporaries in China their lives continued to be unsettled."
When Ms Yang was born in 1989 the vast majority of China was agricultural. "Most people were living below the poverty line, my dad's parents included. So you had millions of migrant workers who moved to the city to work in factories and often left children behind in the village," she said, "Moving from farmland to megacities like Beijing and Shanghai is a huge acceleration. "I'm interested in what that does to people on an economic level but also in terms of their relationships with their families and their loved ones."
Both women say they were "humbled" to be shortlisted for such a prestigious prize alongside fellow nominees Neneh Cherry, Helen Scales, Chloe Dalton and Clare Mulley.Ms Yang said she hoped it brought the lives of the women in her book to a greater number of readers. "It was published just before the general election was called in 2024 when my main focus was on campaigning and then setting up the office," she said. "I'm just grateful that the book found its way to readers and to these judges - and I hope it will find its way to more people."
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