The Women’s Prize

The Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize for Fiction)”celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.”  The prize is awarded in June.  For this project, I try to read each winner in the year it’s announced, and read shortlisted nominees that catch my attention.

Complete List of Winners & Shortlists Read (with links to reviews where available):

2013 – May we Be Forgiven (Homes)
Shortlist:

• Bring up the Bodies (Mantel)
• Life After Life (Atkinson)
• Where’d You Go, Bernadette? (Semple)

2012 – The Song of Achilles (Miller)

2011 – The Tiger’s Wife (Obreht)
Shortlist:

• Room (Donoghue)
• The Memory of Love (Forna)
• Annabel (Winter)
• Great House (Krauss)

2010 – The Lacuna (Kingsolver)
Shortlist:

• Wolf Hall (Mantel)
• Black Water Rising (Locke)

2009 – Home (Robinson)
Shortlist:

• The Wilderness (Harvey)
• The Invention of Everything Else (Hunt)
• Burnt Shadows (Shamsie)
• Molly Fox’s Birthday (Madden)
• Scottsboro (Feldman)

2008 – The Road Home(Tremain)
Shortlist:

• The Outcast (Jones)
• Lottery (Wood)
• When we Were Bad (Mendelson)
• Lullabies for Little Criminals (O’Neill)
• Fault Lines (Huston)

2007 – Half of a Yellow Sun (Adichie)
Shortlist:

• The Inheritance of Loss (Desai)
• A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (Guo)
• The Observations (Harris)

2006 – On Beauty (Smith)
Shortlist:

• The History of Love (Krauss)
• The Night Watch (Waters)
• Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Tiffany)
• Beyond Black (Mantel)
• The Accidental (Smith)

2005 – We Need to Talk About Kevin (Shriver)
Shortlist:

• Old Filth (Gardam)
• A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Lewycka)

2004 – Small Island (Levy)
Shortlist:

• Purple Hibiscus (Adichie)
• The Colour (Tremain)
• Oryx and Crake (Atwood)
• Great Fire (Hazzard) – DNF

2003 – Property (Martin)
Shortlist:

• Unless (Shields)

2002 – Bel Canto (Patchett)
Shortlist:

• Fingersmith (Waters)
• The Siege (Dunmore)
• The White Family (Gee)

2001 – The Idea of Perfection (Grenville)
Shortlist:

• The Blind Assassin (Atwood)

2000 – When I lived in Modern Times (Grant)
Shortlist:

• Amy & Isabelle (Strout)
• White Teeth (Smith)

1999 – A Crime in the Neighborhood (Berne)
Shortlist:

• The Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver)
• Paradise (Morrison)

1998 – Larry’s Party (Shields)
Shortlist:

• The Ventriloquist’s Tale (Melville)
• The Weight of Water (Shreve)

1997 – Fugitive Pieces (Michaels)
Shortlist:

• Alias Grace (Atwood)
• One by One in the Darkness (Madden)

1996 – A Spell of Winter (Dunmore)
Shortlist:

• The Hundred Secret Senses (Tan)
• Ladder of Years (Tyler)