Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction

The shortlist for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) announced on April 7th includes the following titles:

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichiel (a previous Orange Prize Winner in 2007, and National Book Critics Circle Award winner this year for Americanah)  - A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for this book) - A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013) - Growing up in Calcutta, born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead of them.

Burial Rites by Hanna Kent - Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

The Undertaking by Audrey Magee (U.S. edition due out in September) - “A bold, honest novel about Nazi greed and moral blankness…Magee is haunted by the everyday and the small people who are inseparably part of a great ravagement.”—Helen Dunmore, The Guardian (UK)

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride (U.S. edition due out in September) -  "Eimear McBride's novel...is formally groundbreaking, and has been declared a work of "genius" by Man Booker winner Anne Enright. [The book] was awarded the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize, set up to reward iconoclastic fiction. Since then, the book has been shortlisted for the Folio Prize and [also] for the Baileys: the establishment, in other words, is remaking itself in the image of the revolutionary." -The Telegraph

 A few titles from the longlist are: The Luminaries (Eleanor Catton), The Signature of All Things (Elizabeth Gilbert), The Flamethrowers (Rachel Kushner), Still Life with Bread Crumbs (Anna Quindlen), and The Burgess Boys (Elizabeth Strout).

Past winners of the award are Marilynne Robinson for Home, Ann Patchett for Bel Canto, Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna, and A.M.Homes for May We Be Forgiven.

This year’s winner will be announced on June 4, 2014.

For more information, check the Baileys’ Website.