Book Prize: 14th Annual WOMEN’S WAY Book Prize
An annual tradition, The WOMEN’S WAY Book Prize was established in 2007 to honor the legacy of Ernesta Drinker Ballard, a WOMEN’S WAY founder, the first president of its Board of Directors, and an extraordinary champion for women and girls. Since then, WOMEN’S WAY has honored 13 incredible authors whose work has brought visibility to issues impacting gender and racial equity.
Each year, WOMEN’S WAY accepts nominations of a woman or gender-expansive author or co-author for their work in advancing the dialogue about issues impacting women and girls. A volunteer Book Prize committee then meets to narrow down the nominations, read the finalists, and then choose the winner. This year, New York Times Best-Selling author Imbolo Mbue joined this distinguished list as the 14th Annual WOMEN’S WAY Book Prize honoree for her newest novel, How Beautiful We Were.
On October 20th, 2022, WOMEN’S WAY held the 14th Annual Book Prize to honor Imbolo Mbue. This event brought the WOMEN’S WAY community together for a virtual conversation and Q&A session moderated by Jeannine A. Cook, author and shopkeeper of Harriett’s Bookshop.
For those in attendance who had already read How Beautiful We Were, the evening brought new insight into Mbue’s newest novel and its complex characters. For those who hadn’t yet read the novel, the conversation nevertheless provided an intimate glimpse into Mbue’s writing process and major themes of leadership, power, resistance, and justice.
“It was so exciting to hear directly from Imbolo Mbue. Having volunteered as a Book Prize Committee member, we read quite a few nominations this summer — all of which were amazing reads — but ultimately decided on How Beautiful We Were because of the protagonist Thula and her journey and leadership throughout the novel. I think Mbue’s writing touches on and highlights so many important themes, including women at the forefront of social justice movements.” — Hannah R.
A highlight of the evening for many was learning more about one of the novel’s key characters, Thula, and her journey as a woman revolutionary to liberate her home village. Our moderator, Jeannine A. Cook dug deeper into the creation of Thula’s character to better understand Mbue’s goals and process for featuring a character like Thula as the face of the revolution.
We learned from Mbue that in order to craft Thula, she used major revolutionary influences from her own life as inspiration. These influences included individuals such as Gandhi and Malcolm X to explore, through Thula, what it would be like for a woman to lead a revolutionary movement against exploitation, capitalism, and environmental degradation: “I wanted to explore if Gandhi were a woman, if Malcolm X were a woman…”
We also learned from Mbue that Gloria Steinem inspired certain aspects of Thula’s character, ambitions, and the challenges she faces: “I didn’t grow up with feminism, but Gloria Steinem was one of the first feminists that I learned about in the United States.”
Unsurprisingly, Thula is still met with a certain level of resistance to her leadership and prominence as a woman revolutionary that can be traced to nothing else but her gender and unmarried status. Regardless of these challenges, throughout her journey in How Beautiful We Were, Thula continues pushing for a way forward and fights for what she believes is right for her people.
At WOMEN’S WAY, one of our core pillars is that all women should have the right to feel represented by those in leadership positions and supported in holding those positions themselves. We cheer on and advocate for all the Thulas of the world who are pushing and fighting for a better tomorrow and working to advance a future where all women can lead fully and freely without resistance.
We are so honored to have had the opportunity to meet Imbolo Mbue and participate in such an interesting conversation to honor her work and newest novel, How Beautiful We Were. Many thanks to Jeannine A. Cook for serving as our fantastic moderator in yet another WOMEN’S WAY Book Prize and for all who joined us at this year’s 14th Annual event!
