The Women’s Prize for Fiction is an annual award for novels written by women in English and published in the UK. It was established in 1996 to bring more attention and prestige to women’s fiction, which had been chronically overlooked by the media and established literary awards. The prize organizers asked readers to share their own shortlist on social media before the official announcement.

2024 Timeline

• March 5th — the long list of 16 books announced
• April 24th — the shortlist of six books announced
• June 13th — the winner announced

This is my first time engaging with the long list beyond reading synopses.

I thought it would be fun to get a sense of the long list by reading the free digital previews of the novels. As my current e-reader is a Kindle, I stuck with Amazon for this exercise. Digital samples of 14 of the books were available. I purchased a physical copy of one novel that did not have a digital copy/preview. This was The Maiden, historical fiction based on a case from 17th-century Edinburgh. Sadly, I ended up DNF’ing the book after reading 160 pages, about halfway through the novel. The pacing was too slow for me, at least at the time. I may give it another go this summer.

The Long List

Here’s the long list in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. The links lead to the Woman’s Prize website as I’ve copied & pasted the list from their site:

1. Hangman by Maya Binyam, published by ONE (Pushkin Press)
2. In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, published by époque press
3. And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott, published by Allen & Unwin
4. The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, published by Jonathan Cape
5. The Maiden by Kate Foster, published by Mantle
6. Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, published by Viking
7. Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, published by Canongate Books
8. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, published by Jonathan Cape
9. Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, published by Faber & Faber
10. 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee, published by Virago
11. The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord, published by Gollancz
12. Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, published by Picador
13. Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie, published by Oneworld
14. Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan, published by Jonathan Cape
15. River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure, published by Duckworth Books
16. A Trace of Sun by Pam Williams, published by Legend Press

The previews are of various lengths, which surprised me. I’d been under the impression that the preview was always 20% of the book. That would have been too much for me to read, but one preview was only five pages long, which did not give me a sense of the story. Two had much longer previews that I did not finish. In several cases, I was bummed to reach the preview’s end.

My shortlist

1. In Defence of the Act by Effie Black (The exploration of suicide is intriguing.)
2. And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott (The descriptions of going through puberty took me back.)
3. The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright (The issue of “believing” other’s pain. Phew. That mother.)
4. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad (I want to know the sisters’ backstory and what is going to happen on this visit.)
5. 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee (I must know more about the wise and mysterious Ms Mook!)
6. River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure (An intriguing setup and mother/daughter relationship.)

I’m also curious about The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord, Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie. It was hard to narrow it down to six books.

These nine books all drew me in and stayed on my mind after finishing the preview. I can’t wait to see the official shortlist, announced on April 24th at 3 am ET (8 am in England). Here’s the link to watch if you’re up that early (or up that late, which is more likely for me).

Do you follow the Women’s Prize? Have you read another of the novels yet?

An exciting development is that they’ve added a nonfiction prize this year, which I’ve yet to check out.