Women's Prize for Fiction 2024 Longlist Announced!

And the 16 winners are....

Show of hands from everyone who had today circled on their calendar for the announcement of the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist.

(waves arms wildly)

Sometime in the last several years (probably when I started watching BookTube and creating videos on my long-neglected channel), I became an aficionado of All. The. Book. Prizes. Maybe it’s the competitive, impulsive Aries in me. I love the anticipation and speculation. I love the predictions and reactions offered by BookTubers and bloggers and Substackers. I love discovering new-to-me authors and titles. I love the search for the nominees in my library stacks and putting them on hold and the impossible quest of trying to read every one. (FOMO is real, my friends. Alas, so is the need to work full-time, go grocery shopping, sleep, and other mundanities.)

What is The Women’s Prize for Fiction?

Established in 1996, The Women’s Prize for Fiction is an award created to highlight and remedy the imbalance in coverage, respect and reverence given to women writers versus their male peers, creating a platform for exceptional writing by women to shine. The Prize is awarded annually to the author of the best full-length novel of the year written in English and published in the UK. The winner receives £30,000, anonymously endowed, and the ‘Bessie’, a bronze statuette created by the artist Grizel Niven. Books are judged on three core tenets: excellence, originality, and accessibility.

This year, readers also were blessed with the inaugural Women’s Prize for Nonfiction. (I’ll talk about that one in a separate post.)

The 2024 Prize judges—author Monica Ali, chair; author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀; author and illustrator Laura Dockrill; actor Indira Varma; and presenter and author Anna Whitehouse—had this to say about their selections: “These 16 books celebrate the power of individuality with each one showcasing a unique writing style, subject and theme. As you dive into these varied landscapes you will cross continents, jump through time and fall in love with reading all over again.”

Swoon. Yaaaaaaaassssss. Gimme all the books.

The Longlist

Without further ado, here is the 2024 Women’s Prize Longlist, along with links and descriptions from the Prize’s website:

• Hangman by Maya Binyam, published by ONE, Pushkin Press
  An existential journey, a tragic farce, a slapstick tragedy: a shockingly original debut novel about exile, diaspora and the search for Black refuge.

  A man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after 26 years living in exile in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn’t recognise the country or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone at the airport knows him – a man who calls him brother. As they travel to this man’s house, the purpose of his visit comes into focus: he is here to find his real brother, who is dying.
  

• In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, published by époque press
  In Defence of the Act tells the story of Jessica Miller, a suicide researcher who secretly believes suicide might actually be a good thing, until something happens that makes her question everything. Jessica holds opinions that might initially shock some readers, viewing the world via a detached, scientific lens. But through Jessica’s sometimes surprisingly funny narration, Effie Black is able to confront the difficult topic of suicide head-on, while weaving in themes of grief and trauma, forgiveness and resilience, and exploring what it means to be a queer member of a family. The book navigates the relationships between the protagonist and the women in her life, looking from the female perspective at what it means to be a friend, a lover and a carer.
  

• And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott, published by Allen & Unwin
  On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be in life: she’s just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her ever-charming husband Steve – a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture – is nothing but supportive; and they’ve moved into a new home in a wealthy neighbourhood in Toronto, a generous gift from her in-laws.

  But Alice could not feel more like an imposter. She isn’t bonding with Dawn; a struggle made more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother. Every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their picture-perfect neighbours, amongst whom she’s the sole Indigenous resident.

  Her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

  And then strange things start happening.

• The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, published by Jonathan Cape
  Nell – funny, brave and so much loved – is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell’s leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. And across the generations falls the long shadow of Carmel’s famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions.

  This is a meditation on love: spiritual, romantic, darkly sexual or genetic. A generational saga that traces the inheritance not just of trauma but also of wonder, it is a testament to the glorious resilience of women in the face of promises false and true. Above all, it is an exploration of the love between mother and daughter – sometimes fierce, often painful, but always transcendent.
  

• The Maiden by Kate Foster, published by Mantle
  Edinburgh, October 1679. Christian Nimmo is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover, James Forrester. News of her imprisonment and subsequent trial is splashed across the broadsides, with headlines that leave little room for doubt: Adulteress. Whore. Murderess.

  Only a year before, Lady Christian was leading a life of privilege and respectability. So what led her to risk everything for an affair? And does that make her guilty of murder? She wasn’t the only woman in Forrester’s life, and certainly not the only one who might have had cause to wish him dead…

  Inspired by a real-life case, The Maiden gives a voice to women otherwise silenced by history.
  

• Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, published by Viking
  Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war subsumes Sri Lanka, her dream takes her on a different path as she watches those around her, including her four beloved brothers and their best friend, get swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. She must ask herself: is it possible for anyone to move through life without doing harm?
  

• Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, published by Canongate Books
  Dolly Maunder is born at the end of the 19th century, when society’s long-locked doors are just starting to creak ajar for determined women. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly pushing at those doors. A husband and two children do not deter her from searching for love and independence.

  Restless Dolly Maunder is a subversive, triumphant tale of a pioneering woman working her way through a world of limits and obstacles, who is able – despite the cost – to make a life she could call her own.
  

• Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, published by Jonathan Cape
  After years away from her family’s homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. While Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.

  When Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, she joins a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertrude’s lines in classical Arabic with a dedicated group of men who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, all want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer and the warring intensifies, it becomes clear just how many obstacles stand before the troupe. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.
  

• Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, published by Faber & Faber
  In her acclaimed new novel, Claire Kilroy creates an unforgettable heroine, whose fierce love for her young son clashes with the seismic change to her own identity.
  As her marriage strains, and she struggles with questions of autonomy, creativity and the passing of time, an old friend makes a welcome return – but can he really offer her a lifeline to the woman she used to be?
  

• 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee, published by Virago
  At the Golden Sunset retirement home, it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. So when elderly Ms Mook first begins to unspool her memories, the obituarist listening to her is sceptical. Stories of captivity, friendship, murder, adventure, assumed identities and spying. Stories that take place in WWII Indonesia; in Seoul during the Korean war; in cold-war Pyongyang; in China. The stories are so colourful and various, at times so unbelievable, that they cannot surely all belong to the same woman. Can they?

  As playful and thought-provoking as it is compelling, as brutal and harrowing as it is achingly poignant and tender, this is a novel about love and war, deceit and betrayal, about identity, storytelling and the trickery required for survival.
  

• The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord, published by Gollancz
  The world is changing, and humanity must change with it. Rising seas and soaring temperatures have radically transformed the face of Earth. Meanwhile, Earth is being observed from afar by other civilizations… and now they are ready to make contact. Vying to prepare humanity for first contact are a group of dreamers and changemakers.
  

• Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, published by Picador

  Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo.
  But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a 13-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.
  An unforgettable coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel is a moving exploration of the closeness of sisterhood, the immigrant experience, and the collective overcoming of grief.
  

• Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie, published by Oneworld
  Selasi and Akorfa are cousins, born on the same day in 1985. Growing up in a small Ghanaian town, they share everything: whispered late-night conversations, dreams for the future, secrets. But as they enter their teens, Selasi begins to change, constructing a wall around herself to keep everyone away. Soon, Akorfa no longer recognises her sad, withdrawn friend.

  It will take many years for their paths to cross again. Akorfa now works in international development as she navigates the challenges of life as a Black woman and mother in the US; Selasi has finally made it as a successful restaurateur running the hottest spot in Accra. When one of Selasi’s staff is threatened by a corrupt government minister, she and Akorfa must overcome their differences and face the truth of what happened all those years ago, to stop the past from repeating itself.
  (my note: I think there might be a Pittsburgh connection in the plot, from what I’ve read elsewhere!)
  

• Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan, published by Jonathan Cape
  It’s 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the ‘peasants’ – ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star looks set to rise when he stumbles across a scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents loved across the neighbourhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and ‘bad apples’: the Greens.

  At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, otherworldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life – and love – got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there’s nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Now, with the police closing in on a suspect and the tabloids hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.

• River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure, published by Duckworth Books
  A mesmerising reversal of the east–west immigrant narrative set against China’s economic boom, River East, River West is a deeply moving exploration of race, identity and family, of capitalism’s false promise and private dreams.

  Shanghai, 2007: feeling betrayed by her American mother’s engagement to their rich landlord Lu Fang, fourteen-year-old Alva begins plotting her escape. But the exclusive American School – a potential ticket out – is not what she imagined.

  Qingdao, 1985: newlywed Lu Fang works as a lowly shipping clerk. Though he aspires to a bright future, he is one of many casualties of harsh political reforms. Then China opens up to foreigners and capital, and Lu Fang meets a woman who makes him question what he should settle for.
  

• A Trace of Sun by Pam Williams, published by Legend Press
  Raef is left behind in Grenada when his mother, Cilla, follows her husband to England in search of a better life. When they are finally reunited seven years later, they are strangers – and the emotional impact of the separation leads to events that rip their family apart. As they try to move forward with their lives, his mother’s secret will make Raef question all he’s ever known of who he is.

Initial Thoughts

My first reaction—and the general sentiment over on BookTube—is that this is quite an exciting and surprising list. I haven’t read any of these and I’ve only heard of a handful of these titles. More than half are debut authors. There seems to be a wide range of subjects and diverse settings, making this a global representation of women’s voices.

Last year I went completely overboard and tried to read as much of the Longlist as possible before the Shortlist was announced. That…was a little stressful. Not to mention unrealistic. (Again…Aries girl here.) While I’m definitely interested in reading all these, I’m not putting pressure on myself to finish by a certain date. For one thing, I have a lot of library books checked out (as always) and I set a goal to read at least three of my own books each month in 2024. I’ll be happy to get through them by the end of this year—not to mention, there are other prize lists that I’m watching, too.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist will be announced on April 24, and we’ll learn the winner on June 13. I’ll share more updates and thoughts as I dive into these.