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Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 longlist announced

In the UK, the longlist for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced. Now in its 26th year, the £30,000 (A$54,040) prize is presented annually to the best novel written in English by a woman.

The 16 longlisted novels are:

  • Because of You (Dawn French, Michael Joseph)
  • Burnt Sugar (Avni Doshi, Hamish Hamilton)
  • Consent (Annabel Lyon, Atlantic)
  • Detransition, Baby (Torrey Peters, Profile Books)
  • Exciting Times (Naoise Dolan, W&N)
  • How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (Cherie Jones, Tinder Press)
  • Luster (Raven Leilani, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • No One is Talking About This (Patricia Lockwood, Bloomsbury)
  • Nothing But Blue Sky (Kathleen MacMahon, Penguin)
  • Piranesi (Susanna Clarke, Bloomsbury)
  • Small Pleasures (Clare Chambers, W&N)
  • Summer (Ali Smith, Hamish Hamilton)
  • The Golden Rule (Amanda Craig, Abacus)
  • The Vanishing Half (Brit Bennett, Little, Brown)
  • Transcendent Kingdom (Yaa Gyasi, Viking)
  • Unsettled Ground (Claire Fuller, Fig Tree).

The 2021 longlist features six debut novels, and comprises six British authors, five Americans, two Irish writers and a Canadian, Barbadian and Ghanaian/American novelist. It is also the first time that a trans woman, American writer Torrey Peters, has been longlisted for the prize.

A shortlist of six will be announced on 28 April and the winner will be announced 7 July.

UK author Maggie O’Farrell won last year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel Hamnet (Tinder Press).

For more information about the prize and this year’s shortlisted titles, see the website.

 

Category: International news