She also gave a shout-out to Leila Mottley, her former student, who was in town promoting her debut novel Nightcrawling. Ozeki used the opportunity to pay tribute to the women and women’s institutions who have supported her writing over the years, saying, ‘I’m a firm believer in bootstrapping, that women have to support each other and bootstrap each other.’ She went on to thank her alma mater Smith College, one of the oldest existing women’s colleges in the United States the non-profit Women Make Movies the editor Carole DeSanti, Ozeki’s former classmate at Smith who acquired her first book and Hedgebrook Farm writing retreat, where she went to recover from writer’s block after the death of her mother. And this is why this prize is so important to me.’ But one of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot is how I would not be here without the support of women and women’s institutions. She continued: ‘It’s kind of embarrassing, because when one is nominated for a prize one does have to think, you know, what, if? So then you prepare a little speech, and then you think “I’m never going to give this”. ‘This is absurd,’ Ozeki said as she took the stage, adding disbelievingly: ‘I don’t win things.’ 2022 Chair of judges Mary Ann Sieghart presented Ozeki with the £30,000 prize (about R586,000), endowed by an anonymous donor, and the limited edition bronze figurine known as the ‘Bessie’.
Ozeki was awarded the prize at a ceremony in London, hosted by novelist and Women’s Prize founder and director Kate Mosse. Judges called the book ‘a celebration of the power of books and reading’ and ‘a complete joy’. The Book of Form and Emptiness tells the story of fourteen-year-old Benny Oh, who begins to hear voices after the tragic death of his father. American–Canadian author, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki has been announced as the winner of the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction, for her fourth novel The Book of Form and Emptiness.
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