Restless Dolly Maunder

“It’s a historical novel that begins on a sheep farm in New South Wales in the 1880s. It goes right through until the 1950s. In Dolly we have a character who constantly fights against the constraints placed on her as a woman in a man’s world. And she pays a really high price for her nonconformity. She builds a business, loses everything, is forced to start over. But she never loses her fighting spirit. Grenville’s prose is just immaculate: simultaneously plain and poetic. She conjures up those very harsh and beautiful landscapes so perfectly. It’s a book that transports you to another time and place, and all of us judges fell in love with Dolly—we were there for the pain and the beauty of all Dolly’s struggles.” Read more...

Recent Fiction Highlights: The 2024 Women’s Prize Shortlist

Monica Ali, Novelist