Trailblazing Irish author Eimear McBride, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction for her instant classic, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing, talks to former Guardian Culture associate editor Claire Armitstead about her new novel set in London, in which a passionate love affair is tested to its limits.

'Eimear McBride is that old-fashioned thing, a genius' – Anne Enright

'There's an openness, an inclusivity, a distinct lack of God-almightyness, that makes reading her such a pleasure...' – Jeanette Winterson

Eimear McBride grew up in the west of Ireland. Her first novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, and the Goldsmiths Prize. Her second novel The Lesser Bohemians won the 2017 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. In a 2018 Times Literary Supplement poll of 200 critics, academics, and fiction writers, McBride was named one of the 10 best British and Irish novelists writing today.

Former writer and editor at the Guardian, Claire Armitstead joined the newspaper in 1992 and worked there for over 30 years as arts editor, literary editor, head of books, and as editor, Culture. She is the editor of Tales of Two Londons: Stories from a Fractured City; and is a regular commentator on radio.