Aminatta Forna, a Sierra Leonean novelist based in the United Kingdom said, "the Windham Campbell Prize offers a writer what we most crave time to write, free from deadlines, financial pressures, the expectations of others."
British playwright Sam Holcroft, the youngest of the prize winners at age 31, was quite emotional when she learned she had won.
"I'm stunned, overwhelmed and frankly, slightly unhinged to be named as a recipient of the Windham Campbell Prize," said Holcroft. Pakistani novelist Nadeem Aslam's gave a lyrical response. "Artists are moths, chewing holes in the robes of the powerful and the unjust", he said.
All eight writers will accept the prize in person at a ceremony at Yale on September 15 this year.
"I can't think of a more appropriate setting to announce the winners of a global literary prize than here at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library," said Peter Salovey, Yale President while announcing the winners.
