And the winner is …
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Congratulations to the winner
After 25 years is this prize still necessary?
This prize has been going for 25 years. Kate Mosse, co-founder, argues that it is still important because it can still do 3 things:
- honour and celebrate excellent fiction by women
- make women’s endeavours in fiction more visible
- use funds to promote more excellent fiction through charitable, educational and research programmes.
Fiction, she says, can still make a difference. You can read her article published in the Guardian about the prize and its continuing relevance here.
Honouring and celebrating excellent fiction
So in the spirit of the prize, I give you forty brilliant books, all written by women, from the short- and long-list for this year and all the previous winners. I have included links to the books I have reviewed on Bookword.
The 2020 shortlist
- Dominicana by Angie Cruz
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
- A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
- The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
- Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
- Weather by Jenny Offill
The 2020 longlist
- Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
- Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
- Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
- Dominicana by Angie Cruz
- Actress by Anne Enright
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
- Nightingale Point by Luan Goldie
- A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
- How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee
- The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
- The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
- Girl by Edna O’ Brien
- Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
- Weather by Jenny Offill
- The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
- Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
Previous winners of the women’s fiction prize.
Tayari Jones: An American Marriage (2019)
Kamila Shamsie: Home Fire (2018)
Naomi Alderman: The Power (2017)
Lisa McInerney: The Glorious Heresies (2016)
Ali Smith: How to be Both (2015)
Eimear McBride: A Girl is a Half-formed Thing (2014)
A.M. Homes: May We Be Forgiven (2013)
Madeline Miller: The Song of Achilles (2012)
Téa Obreht: The Tiger’s Wife (2011)
Barbara Kingsolver: The Lacuna (2010)
Marilynne Robinson: Home (2009)
Rose Tremain: The Road Home (2008)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Half of a Yellow Sun (2007)
Zadie Smith: On Beauty (2006)
Lionel Shriver: We Need to Talk About Kevin (2005)
Andrea Levy: Small Island (2004)
Valerie Martin: Property (2003)
Ann Patchett: Bel Canto (2002)
Kate Grenville: The Idea of Perfection (2001)
Linda Grant: When I Lived in Modern Times (2000)
Suzanne Berne: A Crime in the Neighbourhood (1999)
Carol Shields: Larry’s Party (1998)
Anne Michaels: Fugitive Pieces (1997)
Helen Dunmore: A Spell of Winter (1996)
