Eight authors share $1m prize as writers face coronavirus uncertainty

Bhanu Kapil, Yiyun Li and Namwali Serpell are among the winners of the 2020 Windham Campbell literary prize

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The day before British-Indian poet Bhanu Kapil learned she had won a Windham Campbell prize, she had been wondering about how to balance writing, teaching and caring for her elderly mother. The next day, she received an email from the prize’s director, Michael Kelleher, informing her that she had been awarded $165,000 (£141,000).

“Sitting in bed, wondering about the future, I’d said, aloud, ‘Help’,” said the 51-year-old, who had never won a poetry prize before. “The moment Michael told me I’d won, I felt as if what I’d called out had been received. And I am not a religious person.”

Related: Maria Tumarkin on winning the 2020 Windham Campbell: 'It feels like a complicated gift'

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