One of the UK's most prestigious literary awards, The Orange Prize for Fiction, is due to announce this year's shortlist on April 21st, with the winner to follow on June 3rd. The longlist of nominated novels, which was published last month, includes a number of strong contenders, meaning there is no obvious front-runner for this year's award.
The Orange Prize for Fiction
The decision to launch a new award specifically aimed at women was made in January 1992, when a group of individuals involved in publishing (both male and female!) met to discuss the concern that most existing literary prizes tended to overlook books by women.
Sponsorship was secured via mobile phone company Orange; the first award was announced in January 1996, and given to Helen Dunmore later that same year for her novel A Spell of Winter. Since then, the prize has gone from strength to strength, although it inevitably attracts criticism from some quarters for its inequality, being only available to female writers.
The 2009 Longlist
This year's longlist contains several well known names - Toni Morrison perhaps the most famous - as well as six debut novelists aiming to scoop the award won last year by Rose Tremain for The Road Home. The full list is as follows:
Debra Adelaide: The Household Guide to Dying
Gaynor Arnold: Girl in a Blue Dress
Lissa Evans: Their Finest Hour and a Half
Bernardine Evaristo: Blonde Roots
Ellen Feldman: Scottsboro
Laura Fish: Strange Music
V.V. Ganeshananthan: Love Marriage
Allegra Goodman: Intuition
Samantha Harvey: The Wilderness
Samantha Hunt: The Invention of Everything Else
Michelle de Kretser: The Lost Dog
Deirdre Madden: Molly Fox’s Birthday
Toni Morrison: A Mercy
Gina Ochsner: The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
Marilynne Robinson: Home
Preeta Samarasan: Evening is the Whole Day
Kamila Shamsie: Burnt Shadows
Curtis Sittenfeld: American Wife
Miriam Toews: The Flying Troutmans
Ann Weisgarber: The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
The Judges
As usual, the panel of judges comprises well-respected women involved in media, publishing and writing. In charge of dishing out the prize this year will be:
Fi Glover (chair), broadcaster
Bidisha, writer and novelist
Sarah Churchwell, journalist and academic
Kira Cochrane, journalist
Martha Lane Fox, entrepreneur
Orange Award for New Writers
The shortlist for the annual prize open to authors who have written their first work of fiction has already been announced. The lucky winner will be selected from Francesca Kay for An Equal Stillness, Nami Mun for Tales from Nowhere, and Ann Weisgarber - also up for the main award for The Personal History of Rachel DuPree.
Full details are available on the Orange Prize for Fiction website.
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