The Correspondent: Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026

#1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025

AN IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER

A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK

'A warm, funny gem of a novel'

LAURA HACKETT, THE TIMES

'Masterful . . . I was delighted and moved'

NEW YORK TIMES

'Immensely enjoyable'

GUARDIAN

'I can't praise it enough. It's an absolute triumph'

CLARE CHAMBERS

'What a novel! Tender, dry, sharp...devastating, but still feel good.'

PANDORA SYKES

'Tremendous'

FREDRIK BACKMAN

'Shows us what a glorious thing growing older can be'

FLORENCE KNAPP

'The year's breakout novel no one saw coming'

WALL STREET JOURNAL

–

Sybil Van Antwerp is seventy-three, slowly losing her sight and always writing letters . . .

To her children. Her favourite authors. Her ex-sister-in-law. The journalist poking into her past.
Her doctor. Suitors. Kindly neighbours. The infuriating gardening club.

All receive Sybil’s witty, wise correspondence, rich with everyday concerns.

But there is one letter that she has never sent. It concerns the darkest period of her life. To post it, Sybil must find forgiveness within herself.

The hardest letter to write is the one you’d never dare to send.