Nominations and Previous Winners of the U.K.'s Women's Prize

Book Award Winners is a program sponsored by the Friends of the South End Library to connect local residents to a diverse group of organizations that recognize outstanding literary work in a broad variety of categories.

 THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION

Written by Women. For Everyone.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prize, is one of the U.K.’s most prestigious literary prizes. It is awarded  each year to a female author of any nationality for the best full-length novel written in English, and published in the U.K. in the preceding year.

First awarded in 1996, its creation was in response to the selection process for the 1991 Booker Prize. That year, no women authors were short-listed for this prestigious award, even though 60 percent of the books written in 1991 were authored by women. Past Women’s Prize for Fiction winners represent a Who’s Who of the world’s female authors, including Boston area novelist Suzanne Berne, who spoke recently at the South End Library about her latest novel, The Dogs of Littlefield.  She won the Orange Award in 1999 for her first novel,A Crime in the Neighborhood.

FOSEL board members Jenni Watson and Reinhold Mahler, who installed the latest Book Awards Winners window at the SE library

Previous winners include: 2018:Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie; 2017:The Power by Naomi Alderman; 2016:The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney; and 2015: How to Be Both by Ali Smith.

 The 2019 prize will be announced June 5 and the nominees are: The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker; Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton; My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite; the Pisces by Melissa Broder; Milkman by Anna Burns; Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi; Ordinary People by Diana Evans; Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott; An American Marriage by Tayari Jones; Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li; Bottled Goods by Sophie van Llewyn; Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli; Praise Song for the Butterflies by Bernice L. McFadden; Circe by Madeline Miller; Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss; and Normal People by Sally Rooney.