The shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction was announced on Tuesday, with Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo and bestselling novelist Hilary Mantel among the finalists, the Guardian reports.
Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, which won the Booker alongside Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, is one of six books that will vie for the $37,000 award. Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, the final book in her popular trilogy of historical novels about 16th-century British statesman Thomas Cromwell, also made the cut.
Two American authors made this year’s shortlist: Angie Cruz for Dominicana and Jenny Offill for Weather. Also named as finalists were A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes and Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, about the death of William Shakespeare’s son during the bubonic plague.
Martha Lane Fox, chair of the panel of judges, told the Guardian that it's been a “big year” for fiction.
“It was difficult,” she said. “We’re all still friends but I’m not going to pretend, it was tense. We weren’t fighting, but passions were high—just as you would want in such a process.”
The Women’s Prize was first awarded in 1996. Past winners have included Ann Patchett for Bel Canto, Lionel Shriver for We Need To Talk About Kevin, and Tayari Jones for An American Marriage.
The winner of this year’s prize will be announced on Sept. 9.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
