Orange Prize Longlist Announced

The longlist for The Orange Prize for fiction was announced this week.

Open only to female authors writing in the English language, the award is now in its 16^th year.

This year’s panel, chaired by Historian and Broadcaster Bettany Hughes, have chosen twenty titles which will be reduced to a shortlist of six in April before the winner is announced on June the 8^th.

The longlist includes nine titles from debut writers as well as the more familiar industry names of Tessa Hadley and Nicole Krauss.

The winner of the Orange prize receives a cheque for £30,000.

Longlist 2011

• Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch (Canongate)
• Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador)
• The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi (Bloomsbury)
• Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty (Faber and Faber)
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Corsair)
• The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury)
• The London Train by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan Cape)
• Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson (Sceptre)
• The Seas by Samantha Hunt (Corsair)
• The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna (Faber and Faber)
• Great House by Nicole Krauss (Viking)
• The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone (Chatto & Windus)
• The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Viking)
• Repeat it Today with Tears by Anne Peile (Serpent's Tail)
• Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Chatto & Windus)
• The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Serpent's Tail)
• The Swimmer by Roma Tearne (Harper Press)
• Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Jonathan Cape)