Clarke was selected from a shortlist of six writers for this year’s Women of the Year award.
“Set in a magical alternate reality, Piranesi” is narrated by a man living in a labyrinthine, statue-filled house – except for one visitor known as another – that contains his entire universe. As he explores his domain, the character’s understanding of his world gradually changes – and so does the reader,’ the AP reports.
Commenting on his award-winning book, Clark said, “It’s a different world. It’s a strange world. This is not the world.” He went on to say that the book’s enthusiastic reception indicates that the stories “do not have to be about this world and modern life to resonate strongly.”
The British author’s first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, was published in 2004; It soon became an international bestseller and was also adapted for television.
Interestingly, his second novel ‘Piranesi’ was published 16 years later, for which he received a prize of £30,000. Sharing more about why it took her so long to write her second book, she told the AP, “(This) is the book I never thought I would get to write. I never thought that I’d be good enough… for a long time, I had brain fog, and you can’t write a novel if you can’t find continuity of work and you can’t build on the work you did yesterday or did a few days ago… but when I got better enough to be able to work fairly consistently, my mind, my imagination, hadn’t changed. The things that fascinated me and the landscapes I wanted to roam around, They stayed the same. It was probably one of the few things that has stayed the same about me.”
The Women’s Prize for Fiction was established in 1996 and some of its past winners have included Zadie Smith and Maggie O’Farrell.
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