The Windham-Campbell prizes, whose recipients are unaware they are in contention until they have won, were announced on Tuesday morning

The British novelist Tessa Hadley and the Irish playwright Abbie Spallen are among the nine writers whose lives have just been upended after learning they have each won a literary award worth $150,000 (£107,000).

The Windham-Campbell prizes were established three years ago with a gift from the late novelist Donald Windham, in memory of his partner Sandy M Campbell, to support the work of nine writers with an unrestricted grant of $150,000. Authors are not told they are in the running for the prize, and most are genuinely surprised when they are informed of their $150,000 win, according to organisers.

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Hadley, a novelist and short story writer who teaches at Bath Spa University, was one of three fiction winners, alongside the Indian writer Jerry Pinto, whose debut novel Em and The Big Hoom was published two years ago, and US novelist CE Morgan, who was chosen as one of the New Yorker’s 20 writers under 40 in 2010.

Hadley, cited for how she “brilliantly illuminates ordinary lives with extraordinary prose that is superbly controlled, psychologically acute, and subtly powerful”, said the win would “make so many things easier, it buys time and freedom … It’s still marvellous to me that the words a writer dreams up in solitude can speak to strangers. Winning this is so reassuring and encouraging.”

Pinto, praised by the award for his “deeply empathetic, humorous, and humane” writing, said his first thought on receiving the call was: “There is a God.

“Then there was: ‘Freedom to write.’ Then: ‘That’s America for you.’ Then: ‘I have to sit down.’ Then: ‘Me?’ Then: ‘I am a writer, I should know what to say.’ Then: ‘I don’t know what to say.’ So I think I am going to say those simple words, which should be worn out by use but are so powerful still: Thank you.”

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, an American playwright who was told the news on 24 February, said: “I only wish everyone alive could get a phone call like the one I just received. I feel like a fog has lifted and that the writing I want to get done could – for the moment, at least – be less of a negotiation with my day-to-day life.”

Administered by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the prizes are awarded in the categories of fiction, nonfiction and drama to authors from any country who write in English, and are intended to reward winners’ “literary achievements or their potential”.

Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch told Canada’s Globe and Mail that at first she thought the call was a scam. “I thought it was ‘Congratulations, you’ve won a cruise to Florida if you pay $200,’” she said. “I nearly didn’t listen to the actual voicemail.”

Spallen made the same mistake, she told the Irish Times. “I thought it was a scam at first,” said Spallen, whose plays include Strandline, and who was cited for dramas that “confront audiences with all the awkward questions, reminding us with thrilling proof that theatre can still be urgently necessary”.

She described herself as “beside myself to receive this award. Both in monetary terms and as a recognition of my work.

“I do try to be brave, and I’m aware that I can produce work that may not be palatable to all. Sometimes that can feel quite the lonely pursuit. Thank you so very much. I’ll stagger on. Less lonely than before,” she said.

Theatre critic Hilton Als, winner of a nonfiction award, said he was “gobsmacked and humbled” by the prize, adding that “essay writing is generally not known as a lucrative field; this honour allows me to continue the work I love with greater confidence — and faith”.

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Australian writer Helen Garner, whose This House of Grief followed the case of a father who drove his three children into a dam, escaping while they drowned, was also named a winner, cited for bringing “acute observations and narrative skill to bear on the conflicts and tragedies of contemporary Australian life”.

Garner said the prize “validates in the most marvellously generous way the formal struggles that I’ve been engaged in over the past 20 years”, and “gives me the heart to keep going”.

US author Stanley Crouch, whose “lyrical, sharp, and deeply American writing shines a bright light on the unexpected corners of our music, literature, culture and history” was the final winner of an award that has gone in the past to names including Aminatta Forna and Geoff Dyer. Next year, the awards will also include poetry, Yale said.