Irish novelist Eimear McBride won this year’s Bailey’s Women’s Prize For Fiction with her debut novel ‘A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing’. It took McBride nine years to get the finished book published and she took home the £30,000 prize at tonight’s awards ceremony.

McBride beat out stiff competition from the other shortlisted titles, which included Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize winning bestseller The Goldfinch.  The judging panel included Cambridge professor Mary Beard, newsreader Sophie Raworth, columnist and author Caitlin Moran and the writer Denise Mina.

Accepting the award McBride said:

“I hope that it will serve as an incentive to publishers everywhere to take a look at difficult books and to think again. There is a contract between publisher and reader that needs to be honoured and a reader must not be underestimated.”

This year’s 19th annual awards took place at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank, with liquer company Bailey’s replacing former sponsor Orange for the first time. VIP guests on the night also included Author Helen Fielding, Sheila Hancock and Hayley Atwell.

An exclusive Video Interview below with winner Eimear McBride: