The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the UK’s most prestigious annual book award celebrating and honouring fiction by women, today announces the 2019 shortlist. Now in its 24th year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women in English from throughout the world.
2019 shortlist
- The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin) See the readers’ guide.
- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Atlantic Books) See the readers’ guide.
- Milkman by Anna Burns (Faber & Faber) See the readers’ guide.
- Ordinary People by Diana Evans (Vintage: Chatto & Windus) See the readers’ guide.
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (Oneworld) See the readers’ guide.
- Circe by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury Publishing) See the readers’ guide.
The judges
The judges for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction, who are all passionate about shining a light on writing by women, are as follows:
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).
Get involved
What do you think of the 2019 shortlisted titles? Which have you read and do you think there are any books missing? Add your comments below, or click any title above to leave a review.
See the full longlist.
Share your thoughts with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using #WomensPrize. Keep up with all the latest news, and find out about the 2019 partners, on the Women’s Prize for Fiction website.
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