Eliza Reid was raised near Ottawa in Canada, and moved to Iceland in 2003 when she was 27 years old. In 2016, Eliza’s husband took office as President of Iceland and she became Iceland’s First Lady. In her capacity as First Lady, Eliza has been active in promoting gender equality, entrepreneurship and innovation as well as tourism, sustainability and the country’s writers and rich literary heritage. She was named a UN Special Ambassador and the Sustainable Development Goals in 2017.

Eliza has been published in several newspapers and magazines included a much lauded op-ed in the NY Times on the strange role of the first lady (she’s also delivered a TED talk on the subject). She is also the co-founder of the acclaimed Icelandic Writers Retreat.

Her book Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They are Changing the World is out on 8 March. Hillary Rodham Clinton describes it as ‘a fascinating window into what a more gender-equal world could look like and why it’s worth striving for’

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Author Pola Oloixarac was born in Buenos Aires and now lives in Barcelona. She has written three novels, and is a regular contributor to The New York Times, El País and La Nación.

In 2010, she was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young Spanish Novelists, and more recently she won the Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer's Award. 

Pola’s most recent book, Mona, is about to be published in the UK. It was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by the New York Public Library, Bookforum, AV Club, Lit Hub, Thrillist, and Redbook.

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This special episode was recorded last year as part of our Primadonna Prize event. It features:

Sandi Toksvig began her comedy career at Girton College, Cambridge where she found time to write and perform in the first all-woman show at the Footlights as well as achieve a first-class degree. Sandi is well known to UK audiences as a broadcaster from Number 73, Call My Bluff, Whose Line Is It Anyway? QI, and The Great British Bake Off. She has written more than twenty fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults.

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey. She has published eighteen books, twelve of which are novels. Her work has been translated into fifty languages. In 2017 she was chosen by Politico as one of the twelve people who would make the world better.

Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu is a New York Attorney and Solicitor of England & Wales with broad expertise in the financial services industry, an author, public speaker and political commentator featured in mainstream and online media. She founded the Women in Leadership publication as a platform to drive positive change on topical issues that impact women globally through inspiring personal leadership journeys. Her book This Is Why I Resist was published in 2021.

Tickets for this year’s Primadonna Prize award, live at Conway Hall on 31 March and featuring Lenny Henry, Kit de Waal and Sandi Toksvig, are now on sale. See our website for details. 

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