Women's Prize Mini Reviews - The Correspondent and Nation of Strangers

Title: The Correspondent*

Author: Virginia Evans

Rating: 4.5 stars / 5 stars

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Favorite Quote: “The letters are the mainstay of my life, where I was only practicing law for thirty years or so. The clerkship was my job; the letters amount to who I am.” Evans, Virginia. The Correspondent. Crown Publishing, 2025, pg. 122. 

Review: The Correspondent follows protagonist Sybil Van Antwerp as she navigates her retirement years. An epistolary novel, the story unfolds in the letters Sybil sends to family, friends, authors, and the occasional nemesis (some more threatening than others), as well as the letters she receives in return. There is also an unsent letter, pieces of which are woven between other letters, revealing how Sybil became the person she is by the time the novel begins.

Let’s start with what’s working: THE FORMAT. I honestly can’t remember the last time I read an epistolary novel and quite frankly, I was a bit nervous going in because it just doesn’t seem like an appealing structure to me. But Evans is brilliant in her execution. I walked away from the novel wanting to start sending letters immediately (I haven’t yet - but give me time).

The character development is also impeccable. This feels like something that should be challenging with this structure - but Sybil and the other characters are all fully developed, from the college professor whose feud turns into friendship with Sybil to Sybil’s suitors and everyone in between. 

The only thing that seemed trite, and a complete departure from Evans’ otherwise deep analysis of the characters of the novel and the challenges they face, is the quick, and frankly unsatisfactory, resolution of [SPOILER ALERT] the stalker sub-plot. Suddenly they’re exchanging letters after years of one-sided animosity that led to various worrisome actions taken against Sybil. 

About that Quote: Much of this book is Sybil finding out who she is in her reflections she shares with others and what’s reflected back to her in communications from others. One thing is clear - her profession was hard-fought, hard-won, and hard on her and her family. To allow her to acknowledge that that massive part of her life is not the total sum of her parts feels like a breakthrough (and yes, I am projecting.

Congrats to The Correspondent and Virginia Evans for winning the Women’s Prize for Fiction!

Have you read The Correspondent? Share your thoughts in the comments! 

Title: Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century

Author: Ece Temelkuran

Rating: 4.75 stars / 5 stars

Favorite Quote: “When things really go south in your country, take care of each other. You’ll have nothing but each other in the end. Don't fall into the trap of proving that you’ve done enough only by demonstrating that the others did less. When you all become strangers in your own land, don’t be strangers to each other.” Temelkuran, Ece. Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century. Canongate, 2026, pg. 94. 

Review: Nation of Strangers seeks to define what it means to exist in a world that is increasingly more fractured and within which more people are losing their homes, both in its most literal sense and ranging to more figurative senses - people displaced by ideology, by identity, by loyalties. Told in a series of letters to the reader, Temelkuran shares her own story beside her broader analysis of the state of the world.

Everyone should read this book. That’s it. That’s the review. I’ve said this time and time again, but I am a sucker for nonfiction that tells the story of the personal while also examining something larger than the personal. What could possibly be more personal than a story of displacement and what could possibly be more broad than the narrative of global displacement? Enter Temelkuran’s series of letters to the reader. Sign. Me. Up.

The structure of this book, too, serves a dual purpose. On the one hand, it provides a (mostly) chronological narrative of the story, but it also seeks to correct the primary problem identified by the author - that of people being strangers. And so, each letter, addressed to “Dear Stranger,” seeks to close that gap - so that the reader and the author are no longer strangers by the end. 

About that Quote: This is the primary premise of the book - the world we live in right now is not ideal. There’s a significant chance that more people will be displaced before the world gets better. And so the author urges those reading, who may very well become strangers in their own lands, to not become estranged from one another.

Congrats to Nation of Strangers and Ece Temelkuran for being shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction. 

Have you read Nation of Strangers? Share your thoughts in the comments!