Orange Prize Longlist

Now in its sixteenth year, the Orange Prize for Fiction is the UK’s most prestigious annual book award for fiction written by a woman. The longlist has been announced and the titles are listed below. The shortlist will be announced on 12th April and then the winner be announced on 8th June. The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 at a ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Here is the longlist:

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

Miles Franklin Longlist

It’s a busy week for longlists. The Miles Franklin Lliterary Award longlist has also been announced. The annual award was set up in 1954 through a bequest of My Brilliant Career author Stella Miles Franklin and is presented to the author of the novel of the highest literary merit which presents Australian life in any of its phases.

Miles Franklin Literary Award 2010 judge, Morag Fraser, said the blend of authors showed that new and award-winning writers continued to expand Australia’s understanding of its own culture. “The newcomers stand alongside some of the great names of Australian literature – writers who have helped define Australian culture and deepened our understanding of ourselves,” Professor Morag said in a statement. “For range and diversity, this is an outstanding Miles Franklin list.”

The 2010 short list will be announced in April, with the winner of the $42,000 prize to be announced at a dinner in Sydney on June 22.

The longlist was chosen from an original field of 50 books and includes:

• Alex Miller – Lovesong
• Brian Castro – The Bath Fugues
• Craig Silvey – Jasper Jones
• David Foster – Sons of the Rumour
• Deborah Foster – The Book of Emmett
• Glenda Guest – Siddon Rock
• Jon Doust – Boy on a Wire
• Patrick Allington – Figurehead
• Peter Carey – Parrot and Olivier in America
• Peter Temple – Truth
• Sonya Hartnett – Butterfly
• Thomas Keneally – The People’s Train

Orange Prize Longlist

Now in its 15th year, the Orange Prize for Fiction celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing. Any woman writing in English, whatever her nationality, country of residence, age or subject matter, is eligible.

The longlist was announced overnight with the shortlist to follow on 20 April. The winner will be announced at a ceremony on 9 June, where the prize of £30,000 will be presented.

Author and TV producer Daisy Goodwin, chairwoman of the judges, said it was a “muscular and pleasurable” longlist.

“It was a tough judging process as there was a particularly strong range of books submitted from all over the world,” she said. However, Goodwin also complained about the depressing subject matter of many of the entrants asying she was unprepared for a new problem: the barrage of “misery literature” that came her way. So many of the 129 books entered for the prize dealt with the subjects of bereavement, child abuse and rape that, she said yesterday, “I felt like a social worker by the end of it.” (Read more here or watch the YouTube video of Daisy Goodwin talking about reading 129 novels in 3 months and the longlist meeting)

Also on the judging panel are rabbi, author and broadcaster Baroness Neuberger; novelist and critic Michele Roberts; journalist Miranda Sawyer; and British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman.

Below is the longlist. On the Orange Prize Longlist web page you can read a synopsis and author information for each book and at The Guardian you can see each book cover with information about the book.

• Rosie Alison – The Very Thought of You
• Eleanor Catton – The Rehearsal
• Clare Clark – Savage Lands
• Amanda Craig – Hearts and Minds
• Roopa Farooki -The Way Things Look to Me
• Rebecca Gowers – The Twisted Heart
• MJ Hyland – This is How
• Sadie Jones – Small Wars
• Barbara Kingsolver – The Lacuna
• Laila Lalami – Secret Son
• Andrea Levy – The Long Song
• Attica Locke – Black Water Rising
• Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall
• Maria McCann – The Wilding
• Nadifa Mohamed – Black Mamba Boy
• Lorrie Moore – A Gate at the Stairs
• Monique Roffey – The White Woman on the Green Bicycle
• Amy Sackville – The Still Point
• Kathryn Stockett – The Help
• Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger

And just for a bit of fun, Movie Line has awarded their Most Orange Prize – go and find out what it’s all about.

And Is an orange called an orange because it’s orange, or is orange orange because of the orange? Which came first – the fruit or the colour? That is the question being posed in Notes and Queries, again in The Guardian.