Evelyn Rose Strange "Evie" Wyld (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 the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2009, and her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, won the Encore Award in 2013 and the Miles Franklin Award in 2014. Her third novel, The Bass Rock, won the Stella Prize in 2021.

Early life and education Evelyn Rose Strange Wyld was born in London in 1980. 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 in Peckham Rye, South London. Her mother is a conservator and her father worked as an art dealer.

The family visited Australia often, and Wyld retains strong memories of her grandparents' sugar cane farm in New South Wales. 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.

As a child she was very introverted, and also suffered from viral encephalitis.

She obtained a BA from Bath Spa University in 2002 and an MA from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2004, both in creative writing. During the time in between, she worked as in a library for a stroke association.

Literary career Wyld is the author of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and Betty Trask Award-winning novel After the Fire, A Still Small Voice and All the Birds, Singing. In 2010 she was listed by The Daily Telegraph as one of the 20 best British authors under the age of 40.Bradbury, Lorna (18 June 2010), "Are these Britain’s best 20 novelists under 40?" , The Telegraph. In 2011 she was listed by the BBC's Culture Show as one of the 12 Best New British Writers.The Culture Show, BBC Two. In 2013 she was included on the once a decade Granta Best of Young British Novelists List. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize, The Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Orange Award for New Writers,Allen, Katie (13 April 2010), "Wyld picked for Orange New Writers prize" , The Bookseller. the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Sky Arts Breakthrough Award, the James Tait Black Prize"Shortlists for book awards are revealed" , The Herald, 19 May 2014. and The Author's Club Prize,Allen, Katie (15 February 2010), "Wyld up for Authors' Club prize" , The Bookseller. and longlisted for the Stella Prize"The Longlist 2014 Stella Prize" , Stella. and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.Wood, Gaby (7 March 2014), "Baileys Women's Prize 2014: A thriving longlist announced" , The Telegraph.

She took over from Nii Parkes as Booktrust's online "Writer in Residence" in 2010, before passing the baton on to Polly Dunbar."Evie Wyld" , Previous Writers in Residence, BookTrust.

Her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, was published in February 2013 and concerns an Australian sheep farmer working on an English hill farm.Williams, Charlotte (6 October 2011), Jonathan Cape buys second Wyld novel" , The Bookseller. The book won the 2014 Miles Franklin Award in June 2014.

Her third novel, The Bass Rock, was published by Jonathan 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.

Her fourth novel, The Echoes, was published by Jonathan Cape in August 2024. Set in Wangkatha Country in Western Australia and in London, it uses a ghostly narrator and multiple time shifts to consider themes of love, trauma, and history, including the effect of the Stolen Generations on Aboriginal people. Some early reviews were positive, while others criticised Wyld's "voyeuristic and disrespectful" treatment of First Nations history, the Stolen Generations, and Australia's colonial past. Writer Karen 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...".

She is a writing coach at The Novelry.

Awards and honours 2009: Winner, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, for After the Fire, A Still Small Voice 2010: Winner, Betty Trask Award, for After the Fire, A Still Small Voice 2013: Listed, Granta list of 20 Best of Young British Novelists 2013: Shortlisted, Costa Book Awards (Novel), for All the Birds, Singing 2013: Winner, Encore Award, for All the Birds, Singing 2014: Winner, European Union Prize for Literature, UK, All the Birds, Singing 2014: Winner, Miles Franklin Award, for All the Birds, Singing 2018: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative 2021: Shortlisted, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, for The Bass Rock 2021: Winner, Stella Prize, for The Bass Rock 2022: Shortlisted, Barbara Jefferis Award, for The Bass Rock 2025 Shortlisted, Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction, for The Echoes

Personal life Wyld regards herself as English, but does have dual nationality (British and Australian). She has spent most of her life in Peckham. In 2012 she was living in Brixton and working at an independent bookshop in Peckham.

She married literary agent Jamie Coleman in July 2013.

Bibliography

Short stories "What will happen to the dog after we are dead?" (published in Goldfish: An Anthology of Writing from Goldsmiths) "The Convalescent's Handbook" (online ) first published in Sea Stories, an anthology from the National Maritime Museum "The Building Opposite" (appeared in 3:AM Magazine anthology London, New York, Paris) "The Whales" (online) from Booktrust "Menzies Meat" (online) "Free Swim" (online ) "Six Degrees of Separation" (online )

References

External links

Savidge Reads Grills… Evie Wyld (interview with Simon Savidge, 2010) (18 September 2011)