Evelyn Rose Strange "Evie" WyldFRSL (born 1980) is an English author. Several of her novels are set in Australia, where she spent holidays with her grandparents as a child, and she has won several Australian literary awards. Her first novel,After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, won theJohn Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2009, and her second novel,All the Birds, Singing, won theEncore Award in 2013 and theMiles Franklin Award in 2014. Her third novel,The Bass Rock, won theStella Prize in 2021.

Evelyn Rose Strange Wyld^{[1][better source needed]} was born inLondon in 1980.^[2] Her mother, who is Australian, met her English father in the late 1960s, and they had intended to live in Australia; however, her father found it not to his liking, so they stayed in England, living inPeckham Rye, South London.^[3] Her mother is aconservator and her father worked as anart dealer.^[4]

The family visited Australia often, and Wyld retains strong memories of her grandparents'sugar cane farm^[4] inNew South Wales.^[5] When she was a child she sometimes told people in England that she was from Australia, "to try and sound more interesting", but that was not true.^[3]

As a child she was very introverted,^[4] and also suffered fromviral encephalitis.^[5]

She obtained a BA fromBath Spa University in 2002 and anMA fromGoldsmiths, University of London in 2004, both increative writing.^[4][6] During the time in between, she worked as in a library for a stroke association.^[4]

Wyld is the author of theJohn Llewellyn Rhys Prize andBetty Trask Award-winning novelAfter the Fire, A Still Small Voice^[7] andAll the Birds, Singing. In 2010 she was listed byThe Daily Telegraph as one of the 20 best British authors under the age of 40.^[8] In 2011 she was listed by the BBC'sCulture Show as one of the 12 Best New British Writers.^[9] In 2013 she was included on the once a decadeGranta Best of Young British Novelists List.^[10] Her novels have been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize,^[11] The Miles Franklin Award,^[12] theCommonwealth Writers Prize,^[13] theOrange Award for New Writers,^[14] theInternational IMPAC Dublin Literary Award,^[15] The Sky Arts Breakthrough Award,^[16] theJames Tait Black Prize^[17] and The Author's Club Prize,^[18] and longlisted for theStella Prize^[19] and theBaileys Women's Prize for Fiction.^[20]

She took over fromNii Parkes asBooktrust's online "Writer in Residence" in 2010,^[21] before passing the baton on toPolly Dunbar.^[22]

Her second novel,All the Birds, Singing, was published in February 2013 and concerns an Australian sheep farmer working on an English hill farm.^[23] The book won the 2014Miles Franklin Award in June 2014.^[24]

Her third novel,The Bass Rock, was published byJonathan Cape on 26 March 2020. Set in Scotland, it explores the lives of three women living in different centuries and the ways their lives are impacted by masculinity and male violence.^[25]

Her fourth novel,The Echoes, was published byJonathan Cape in August 2024.^[26] Set inWangkatha Country inWestern Australia and in London, it uses a ghostly narrator and multiple time shifts to consider themes of love, trauma, and history,^[27] including the effect of theStolen Generations onAboriginal people.^[4] Some early reviews were positive,^[28] while others criticised Wyld's "voyeuristic and disrespectful" treatment ofFirst Nations history, the Stolen Generations, and Australia's colonial past.^[29][30][31] WriterKaren Wyld (no relation) wrote that Wyld had "applied a white-gazed approach to her depictions of First Nations peoples and history... Using dehumanising racial stereotypes and tropes...".^[32]

• 2009: Winner,John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, forAfter the Fire, A Still Small Voice^{[citation needed]}
• 2010: Winner,Betty Trask Award, forAfter the Fire, A Still Small Voice^[33]
• 2013: Listed,Granta list of 20 Best of Young British Novelists^[10]
• 2013: Shortlisted,Costa Book Awards (Novel), forAll the Birds, Singing^[11]
• 2013: Winner,Encore Award, forAll the Birds, Singing^[34]
• 2014: Winner,European Union Prize for Literature, UK,All the Birds, Singing^[35]
• 2014: Winner,Miles Franklin Award, forAll the Birds, Singing^{[citation needed]}
• 2018: Elected Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative^[36]
• 2021: Shortlisted,Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, forThe Bass Rock^[37]
• 2021: Winner,Stella Prize, forThe Bass Rock^[38][39]
• 2022: Shortlisted,Barbara Jefferis Award, forThe Bass Rock^[40]
• 2025 Shortlisted,Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction, forTheEchoes^[41]

Wyld regards herself as English,^[42] but does havedual nationality (British andAustralian).^[3] She has spent most of her life inPeckham.^[5] In 2012 she was living inBrixton and working at an independent bookshop in Peckham.^[43][44]

She married literary agent Jamie Coleman in July 2013.^[45]

• —— (2009).After the Fire, A Still Small Voice (hardcover 1st ed.). London: Pantheon.ISBN 9780307378460.
• —— (2013).All The Birds, Singing (hardcover 1st ed.). London: Jonathan Cape.ISBN 9780224096683.
• —— (2020).The Bass Rock (hardcover 1st ed.). London: Jonathan Cape.ISBN 9781911214397.
• —— (2024).The Echoes (hardcover 1st ed.). London: Jonathan Cape.ISBN 9781101871904.

• "What will happen to the dog after we are dead?" (published inGoldfish: An Anthology of Writing from Goldsmiths)^[46]
• "The Convalescent's Handbook" (onlineArchived 30 November 2011 at theWayback Machine) first published inSea Stories, an anthology from theNational Maritime Museum^[46]
• "The Building Opposite" (appeared in3:AM Magazine anthologyLondon, New York, Paris)^[46]
• "The Whales" (online) fromBooktrust
• "Menzies Meat" (online)
• "Free Swim" (onlineArchived 29 November 2009 atarchive.today)
• "Six Degrees of Separation" (onlineArchived 15 July 2011 at theWayback Machine)

• Official website
• Savidge Reads Grills… Evie Wyld (interview with Simon Savidge, 2010)
• "English short story writer Evie Wyld talks to the European Short Story Network about her work and influences" onYouTube (18 September 2011)

• 1980 births
• Living people
• English women novelists
• Writers from the London Borough of Lambeth
• Alumni of Bath Spa University
• Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London
• John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winners
• Miles Franklin Award winners
• English short story writers
• British women short story writers
• 21st-century British novelists
• 21st-century English women writers
• English people of Australian descent
• People from Brixton
• 21st-century British short story writers
• Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
• Australian expatriates in England
• 21st-century British women novelists

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