> Skip to content
Read an extract
Play sample
  • Published: 22 April 2021
  • ISBN: 9781761045301
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $22.99

The Bass Rock

Winner of the 2021 Stella Prize




The lives of three women weave together across four centuries in the dazzling book from Evie Wyld, winner of the Miles Franklin Award and the Stella Prize.

Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has for centuries watched over the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries the fates of three women are linked: to this place, to each other.

In the early 1700s, Sarah, accused of being a witch, flees for her life.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Ruth navigates a new house, a new husband and the strange waters of the local community.

Six decades later, the house stands empty. Viv, mourning the death of her father, catalogues Ruth’s belongings and discovers her place in the past – and perhaps a way forward.

Each woman’s choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men in their lives. But in sisterhood there is the hope of survival and new life. Intricately crafted and compulsively readable, The Bass Rock burns bright with anger and love.

  • Published: 22 April 2021
  • ISBN: 9781761045301
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Evie Wyld

Evie Wyld grew up in Australia and the UK. She is part owner of Review, a small independent bookshop in London. Her first novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Betty Trask Award. In 2011 she was listed as one of the Culture Show’s Best New British Novelists. She was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. In 2013 she was listed as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Evie’s second novel, All the Birds, Singing, was published in 2013. It won the 2014 Miles Franklin Award, the Encore Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, and was longlisted for the 2014 Stella Prize and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her third novel, The Bass Rock, won the 2021 Stella Prize. Her graphic novel with illustrator Joe Sumner, Everything Is Teeth, was published in 2015.

Also by Evie Wyld

See all

Awards & recognition

The Stella Prize

Winner  •  2021  •  The Stella Prize

NSW Premier's Literary Awards

Shortlisted  •  2021  •  Christina Stead Prize

Prime Minister's Literary Awards

Shortlisted  •  2021  •  Fiction

Discover more

Article
Award-winning and shortlisted books of 2022

Discover the best Penguin Random House books of 2022 with this list of award-winning and shortlisted titles this year.

Article
2021 Stella Prize winner announced

​We are thrilled to share The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld has won the 2021 Stella Prize!

Article
The Bass Rock book club notes

Miles Franklin Award-winner Evie Wyld is back with an intricately crafted and compulsively readable story.