The Women’s Prize For Fiction announce shortlist of diverse voices and nationalities

A group of phenomenal judges, who all champion writing by women, have shortlisted six outstanding authors for the 24th Annual Women’s Prize For Fiction.

Professor Kate Williams, Arifa Akbar, Dolly Alderton, Leyla Hussain and Sarah Wood shortlisted six books, all full-length novels written and published between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019.

The following books and authors were announced as 2019’s shortlist today

  • 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 2019 list features Oyinkan Braithwaite - a debut author who graduated from Kingston University after studying Creative Writing and Law, and who has gone on to freelance and work as an assistant editor at Kachifo. Oyikan has previously been shortlisted as a top ten spoken word artist in the Eko Poetry Slam and has also self-published work. Her book My Sister, the Serial Killer has been described as a ‘deliciously deadly debut’.

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) have also been shortlisted, as well as acclaimed author Pat Barker CBE and the Brooklyn based author Tayari Jones, who has written other novels including Silver Sparrow and The Untelling.

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.”

The award ceremony for The Women’s Prize for Fiction will be held on June 5 in central London, and the winning author will receive and anonymously endowed cheque for £30,000 as well as beautiful bronze figurine known as ‘Bessie’, created by the artist Grizel Niven.