WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION ANNOUNCES 2013 LONGLIST
WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION ANNOUNCES 2013 LONGLIST
Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist announcement: 16 April
Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist readings: 04June
Awards ceremony: 05 June
London, 13th March 2013: The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, today announces the 2013 longlist. Now in its eighteenth year – and known from 1996 to 2012 as the Orange Prize for Fiction – the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women in English from throughout the world.
Author
Title
Publisher
Nationality
Kitty Aldridge
A Trick I Learned From Dead Men
Jonathan Cape
British
3rd Novel
Kate Atkinson
Life After Life
Doubleday
British
3rd Novel
Ros Barber
The Marlowe Papers
Sceptre
British
1st Novel
Shani Boianjiu
The People of Forever are Not Afraid
Hogarth
Israeli
1st Novel
Gillian Flynn
Gone Girl
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
American
3rd Novel
Sheila Heti
How Should A Person Be?
Harvill Secker
Canadian
2nd Novel
A.M Homes
May We Be Forgiven
Granta
American
6th Novel
Barbara Kingsolver
Flight Behaviour
Faber & Faber
American
8th Novel
Deborah Copaken Kogan
The Red Book
Virago
American
2nd Novel
Hilary Mantel
Bring Up the Bodies
Fourth Estate
British
10th Novel
Bonnie Nadzam
Lamb
Hutchinson
American
1st Novel
Emily Perkins
The Forrests
Bloomsbury Circus
New Zealand
4th Novel
Michèle Roberts
Ignorance
Bloomsbury
British
13th Novel
Francesca Segal
The Innocents
Chatto & Windus
British
1st Novel
Maria Semple
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
American
2nd Novel
Elif Shafak
Honour
Viking
Turkish
7th Novel
Zadie Smith
NW
Hamish Hamilton
British
4th Novel
M.L. Stedman
The Light Between Oceans
Doubleday
British/Australian
1st Novel
Carrie Tiffany
Mateship with Birds
Picador
Australian
2nd Novel
G. Willow Wilson
Alif the Unseen
Corvus Books
American
1st Novel
The judges for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction are:
Miranda Richardson, (Chair), Actor
Razia Iqbal, BBC Broadcaster and Journalist
Rachel Johnson, Author, Editor and Journalist
JoJo Moyes, Author
Natasha Walter, Feminist Writer and Human Rights Activist
“The task of reducing the list of submissions from over 140 to just 20 books was always going to be daunting,” commented Miranda Richardson, Chair of Judges, “but this year’s infinite variety has made the task even trickier.”
She continues, “The list we have ended up with is, we believe, truly representative of that diversity of style, content and provenance, and contains those works which genuinely inspired the most excitement and passion amongst the judges. I don’t anticipate the job becoming easier at the next stage!”
Set up in 1996 to celebrate and promote international fiction by women throughout the world to the widest range of readers possible, the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013 is awarded for the best novel of the year written by a woman. Any woman writing in English – whatever her nationality, country of residence, age or subject matter – is eligible.
This year’s longlist honours both new and well-established writers, featuring six first novels alongside two previous Orange Prize winners, Barbara Kingsolver, who is longlisted for her eighth novel, and Zadie Smith longlisted for her fourth novel. Five authors appearing on this year’s list have previously been longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and a further four authors have been previously shortlisted.
The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.
The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in The Ballroom at the Royal Festival Hall on 05 June 2013.
An announcement confirming the new headline sponsor of the Prize will be made in advance of the awards ceremony in June.
Known as the Orange Prize for Fiction between 1996 and 2012, previous winners include Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles (2012), Téa Obreht for The Tiger’s Wife (2011), Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna (2010), Marilynne Robinson for Home (2009), Rose Tremain for The Road Home (2008), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Half of a Yellow Sun (2007), Zadie Smith for On Beauty (2006), Lionel Shriver for We Need to Talk About Kevin (2005), Andrea Levy for Small Island (2004), Valerie Martin for Property (2003), Ann Patchett for Bel Canto (2002), Kate Grenville for The Idea of Perfection (2001), Linda Grant for When I Lived in Modern Times (2000), Suzanne Berne for A Crime in the Neighbourhood (1999), Carol Shields for Larry’s Party (1998), Anne Michaels for Fugitive Pieces (1997), and Helen Dunmore for A Spell of Winter (1996).