About the author
Virginia Evans is an American novelist. Her epistolary debut The Correspondent follows a retired lawyer through the letters she writes and receives, and it received the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Virginia Evans tells the novel entirely through correspondence, including replies that correct Sybil's version of events. The gaps between letters carry as much weight as their declarations, allowing family history and new attachments to emerge without a separate narrator explaining them.
Where to start
Start with The Correspondent. A seventy-three-year-old retired lawyer writes letters that gradually expose the losses, quarrels, and unfinished relationships of her life.
