Orange Prize for Fiction: Longlist announced

The Orange Prize for Fiction announced its longlist this morning. The Prize is now in its sixteenth year, and is the UK's only annual award for books written by women. The Prize exists to celebrate the work of talented, original women writers all over the world. This year's longlist of twenty books features writers from twelve different publishing imprints and, most excitingly, nine of the twenty books are debut novels.


The full longlist is as follows:

• Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch (Canongate)
• Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador)
• The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi (Bloomsbury)
• Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty (Faber and Faber)
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Corsair)
• The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury)
• The London Train by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan Cape)
• Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson (Sceptre)
• The Seas by Samantha Hunt (Corsair)
• The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna (Faber and Faber)
• Great House by Nicole Krauss (Viking)
• The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone (Chatto & Windus)
• The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Viking)
• Repeat it Today with Tears by Anne Peile (Serpent's Tail)
• Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Chatto & Windus)
• The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Serpent's Tail)
• The Swimmer by Roma Tearne (Harper Press)
• Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Jonathan Cape)

Of these twenty titles, I've only read Room by Emma Donoghue, which I really enjoyed. The novel is narrated by a five year old boy, Jack, who has lived his entire life in a single room with his mother. This was something fresh and original, with an engaging and believable child narrator. If you haven't read it, I thoroughly recommend it.

With less than a month before the shortlist is announced on April 12th, I want to try and read a couple more from this list. I'm going to try and get through Repeat it Today with Tears by Anne Peile, Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson, The Seas by Samantha Hunt, and The Swimmer by Roma Tearne.

Let's see how I get on with these, shall we?

For more info on the Orange Prize for Fiction, see their 2011 page where the longlist and further details about the prize can be found.