We are delighted to announce that Zawe Ashton, acclaimed actress, director, playwright and author, will host the new season of our chart-topping Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast.

Launching with a double episode release: a conversation with award-winning actress Claire Danes, and a conversation with bestselling novelist Candice Carty-Williams.

Season Four of the podcast continues to celebrate the best books written by women, by interviewing inspirational women in the arts about the books that have most influenced their life and career.

Danes, recipient of three Primetime Emmy Awards and four Golden Globes, speaks about the significance of female friendship on the page and off, her enduring love of imperfect female protagonists in young adult fiction and being part of some of the biggest book adaptations on the silver screen, including the 1994 adaptation of Little Women. Carty-Williams, author of the Sunday Times bestselling Queenie and the first black female recipient of the British Book Award, speaks about the decolonisation of English literature in some of today’s ground-breaking new fiction, illuminates the vital role of books as safe spaces for young readers and why funny girls, ultimately, have the last laugh.

Zawe Ashton said: ‘It’s a pleasure to be coming aboard as the new Women’s Prize for Fiction podcast host. I’m so grateful to the community of women that have given me their time. Blending the narratives of these innovative women’s lives with the books and authors that have shaped them, has been a glorious way to celebrate story as our universal language. I’m thrilled that we are dropping not one but two episodes to kick things off. Candice Carty-Williams and Claire Danes are two virtuosos, women at the nerve centres of their artistic fields. These two episodes are the perfect pairing to give you a taste of the scope of the conversations this season. I do hope you’ll join us week after week.’