Revealing the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist

We’re delighted to reveal this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, as chosen by our 2019 judges. The shortlist, which features a diverse range of voices and nationalities, is as follows:

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Milkman by Anna Burns

Ordinary People by Diana Evans

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Circe by Madeline Miller

The judges for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction, who are all passionate about shining a light on writing by women, are:

• Professor Kate Williams (Chair), author, historian and Professor of History at the University of Reading
• Arifa Akbar, journalist and critic
• Dolly Alderton, columnist, broadcaster and author
• Leyla Hussein, campaigner and psychotherapist
• Sarah Wood,  digital entrepreneur

Chair of the Judges,Professor Kate Williams, said: “It’s a fantastic shortlist; exciting, vibrant, adventurous. We fell totally in love with these books and the amazing worlds they created. These books are fiction at its best – brilliant, courageous and utterly captivating.”

This year’s list features one debut author (Oyinkan Braithwaite), as well as a previous winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction (Madeline Miller, for The Song of Achilles), a winner of Orange Award for New Writers (Diana Evans, for 26a) and one previously shortlisted author (Anna Burns, for No Bones).

Love the books on this year’s shortlist? Or are you yet to discover them? Either way,  join the conversation @WomensPrize, or tag your posts using #WomensPrize.