Who Is Yael van der Wouden? Introducing The 2025 Women’s Prize Winner

Yael van der Wouden is the 30th winner of the prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction. The Dutch writer’s debut novel, The Safekeep, clinched the prize against a stiffly competitive shortlist. Here’s what you need to know before cracking the spine, plus exactly how Yael’s win is a striking rarity.

Who Is Yael van der Wouden?

Yael van der Wouden is a Dutch-Israeli writer, novelist and lecturer living and working in the Netherlands. Born in 1987 in Tel Aviv to an Israeli mother and Dutch father, her family moved to the Netherlands when she was 10 years old. She later attended Utrecht University, where she has since lectured in creative writing and comparative literature.

Before The Safekeep, Yael penned a handful of short stories and essays in English and Dutch (including a fictional column channeling the voice of David Attenborough), earning nominations for prizes including Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions and the Pushcart Prize. Her most notable work, however, was an essay: in 2018, ‘On (Not) Reading Anne Frank’ was published in The Best American Essays with a ‘notable mention’ credit; it was originally published by The Sun Magazine in December 2017. In it, amid a grappling with her Jewish identity backdropped by a hostile climate in the Netherlands, she describes her upbringing in Israel, the Dutch countryside and an unnamed Dutch city – how she ‘clawed [her] way up in the Dutch educational system, and stumbled into a university in Utrecht as if I’d walked into the wrong party but decided to make the best of it’. Here, she earned a BA in comparative literature and gradually uncovered her identity as a writer.

When Yael finished The Safekeep, written in English, it sparked a nine-way bidding war. Viking (an imprint of Penguin) won the rights in the UK, and the novel was published in the US, the Netherlands and 13 more countries worldwide concurrently in summer 2024, with translations published in France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Romania, Norway and more. At the time, Yael described this as ‘a dream come true’, with editorial director Isabel Wall, who won the auction on behalf of Viking, describing The Safekeep as ‘the most original and exhilarating novel I have read in a long time’.

‘I was so impressed by Yael van der Wouden’s ability to combine a gripping tale of desire and obsession between two women with a powerful examination of the legacy of the Holocaust and the darker parts of our collective past,’ Isabel added. ‘I cannot wait to share it with readers.’

The Safekeep would go on to be shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Wingate Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, as well as the globally renowned Booker Prize and, of course, the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The Women’s Prize Fiction 2025 Shortlistees

Dutch Debut: A Double Rarity

It’s not often a debut novelist wins the Women’s Prize for Fiction: it has only happened six times in the history of the prize. This includes the inaugural winner, Helen Dunmore, for A Spell of Winter in 1996, and, most recently, Lisa McInerney for The Glorious Heresies in 2016. It’s worth noting the 30th Women’s Prize for Fiction was a debut-heavy year: 56 percent of the Longlist was made up of debut novels (9/16), with the Shortlist two thirds debuts (4/6) – so the odds were firmly on a debut writer winning.

But the double rarity is thus: Yael is the very first Dutch writer to win the Women’s Prize for Fiction. While women of any nationality across the globe penning a full-length novel are eligible for the Prize, their work must be published in the UK and be written in English; translations are not eligible. As such, the Prize is naturally biased towards the English speaking world, namely the US which boasts the most winners across the Prize’s history (13, including Canadian-American author Ruth Ozeki and Yugoslavia-born Téa Obreht), and the Prize’s motherland, the UK, which counts 10 winners. Two Canadians, two Irishwomen, and one Australian have also won the prize.

Yael’s win is no mean feat: away from the English speaking world, only two writers have won the Women’s Prize for Fiction: Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie and Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Like Yael, Kamila and Chimamanda write primarily in English, opening their work up to billions of readers across the globe, and to awards like the Women’s Prize.

What Is The Safekeep About?

The Safekeep takes us back to 1960, with judge Diana Evans describing it as ‘an intense, absorbing mystery’.

Overijssel, the Netherlands: 15 years have passed since World War II ended, and life in this quiet Dutch province has seemingly returned to normal. The scars of war – the bomb craters, the ruined buildings – have been erased. Here, Isabel lives a solitary life in her late mother’s country house, adhering strictly to routine. But her tranquility is shattered with the arrival of Eva, her brother Louis’ new girlfriend, for a stiflingly hot summer.

Eva is everything Isabel is not. Where Isabel is disciplined, Eva is carefree; where Isabel is reserved, Eva is intrusive. As items begin to vanish from Isabel’s house, her initial grievances escalate into an intense obsession and spiralling suspicions – which unexpectedly morphs into desire. This leads to a revelation that shatters her understanding of everything. The war’s echoes, it turns out, linger on, and neither Eva nor the house are exactly as they seem.

‘I found it gripping and completely consuming,’ Diana says, describing the novel as ‘a debut written with the mastery of a seasoned novelist’. ‘It will keep you engrossed right up until the end,’ she adds.

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