Summary: Nigerian-British award-winning writer and poet, Theresa Lola has joined the Judging Panel for the 2027 prestigious Women’s prize for Fiction. She’s the author of In Search of Equilibrium (2019) and Ceremony for the Nameless (2024).
Nigerian-British award-winning writer and poet, Theresa Lola has joined the Judging Panel for the 2027 prestigious Women’s prize for Fiction. She will judge alongside Merve Emre, Charlotte Collins, Esther Freud, and Eimear McBride.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the world’s most recognised and widely celebrated prestigious literary prize awarded to any female fiction writer of any nationality for the best original full-length novel written in English. The award was founded by author Kate Mosse and a group of publishing professionals in 1996 and celebrated annually in the United Kingdom. It was a direct response to the 1991 Booker Prize shortlist, which featured zero female authors despite women writing 60% of the novels published that year. The winner receives £30,000 (anonymously endowed) alongside the “Bessie”, a bronze statuette designed by artist Grizel Niven.
Every year, a panel consisting of five leading women chosen from different fields such as academia, journalism, literature, and broadcasting is assembled for the judging panel. They read dozens of submitted novels to select a longlist of 16 books, a shortlist of six, and an ultimate winner. The entire judging process relies on three core pillars: excellence, originality, and accessibility.
As a writer and creative, Lola has established herself as a vibrant voice in the literary community. Her creative work deeply explores the complexities of dual identity, memory, family history, and mental equilibrium, drawing rich inspiration from both her Yoruba roots and her life in the UK diaspora. She once served as the Young People’s Laureate for London from 2019 to 2020. In 2025, she was named the joint winner for Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry for her poetry collection Ceremony for the Nameless. The same collection was longlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature Longlist (2026). In 2018, she won the highly competitive Brunel International African Poetry Prize. She’s the author of In Search of Equilibrium (2019) and Ceremony for the Nameless (2024).
