Stella Prize goes to British Australian author Evie Wyld for The Bass Rock — a gothic tale of women and violence

British Australian author Evie Wyld has won the $50,000 Stella Prize for Australian women and non-binary writers for The Bass Rock, a gothic tale spanning 300 years and multiple generations of women. Previous Stella winners 2020: See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill 2019: The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie 2018: Tracker by Alexis Wright 2017: The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose 2016: The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood 2015: The Strays by Emily Bitto 2014: The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright 2013: Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany Speaking to the ABC from London, where she lives, Wyld said receiving the Stella Prize was particularly special given the pandemic and the UK's lockdowns. Evie Wyld told RN's The Bookshelf she was influenced by Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House: “The kind of slow eeriness of that book really affected me.” Male violence and female trauma In her acceptance speech, delivered via an online ceremony on Thursday night, Wyld noted she had begun writing The Bass Rock in a pre-#MeToo world and was now talking about it in a post-COVID one. She said the pandemic felt "like an experiment in how much women can be forced to absorb" — check-listing unpaid work, child care and the increase in domestic violence.