On 12 June 2025, it was announced that Dutch novelist Yael van der Wouden had won the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her debut novel The Safekeep – a story set in the Netherlands in the early 1960s, exploring themes of sexual desire, family secrets, and the legacy of the Second World War.

Read more about “The Safekeep”…

Kit de Waal, chair of the judges, praised the novel: “The Safekeep is that rare thing: a masterful blend of history, suspense and historical authenticity. (…) It is also a love story with beautifully rendered intimate scenes written with delicacy and compelling eroticism. This astonishing debut is a classic in the making, a story to be loved and appreciated for generations to come. Books like this don’t come along every day.”

The 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction was awarded to The Story of a Heart, a deeply compassionate exploration of organ donation by British doctor Rachel Clarke.