The Correspondent is a 2025 epistolary novel by Virginia Evans, winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Sybil Van Antwerp is a retired lawyer. Letter writing has been a passion since she was young. Her letters have gone out to all sorts of people – friends and family obviously, but also to famous authors – P.L. Travers, Joan Didion, Ann Patchett, Larry McMurtry, amongst others. And these people reply. So that was fun. It was also interesting. Usually we think of a novel as a one way method of communication. Here it’s much more of a conversation.

Authoring is different to letter writing. A letter is for one person. A book has to try and manage the trick of feeling relevant to lots of people at the same time. And when you review a book, you are dealing with something that has become separate from the person who wrote it, which is maybe why people write bad reviews so easily. They forget that an actual individual spent years at a desk somewhere tapping on a keyboard. So there is an impersonality on both sides. The Correspondent reminds us that there are real people involved, and a novel is an invitation to conversation between them. Certainly I feel that in writing down my thoughts about a book – replying to the author in effect – I get more out of it. And fittingly there are discussion topics included at the end of The Correspondent.

Maybe it is good to be reminded that an author is an actual person, just like a reader. This book brings those two usually distant correspondents closer together. Certainly, mutual understanding is a major theme of Virginia Evans’ book. There, I have used her name. Well done, Virginia.

The Correspondent is funny, moving and interesting on the business of communication. What’s not to like? And it gives good book recommendations – I’m going to read Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry at some point.