Our three longlisted writers’ works span the mythical to the everyday: from a retelling of a classic Greek myth, to an intimate look at the everyday lives of two London couples, and the tragic story of the women in Truman Capote’s elite circle.
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Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist features Pat Barker, Diana Evans & Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
Three writers from the Penguin Random House UK family of authors have been longlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction; the UK’s most prestigious annual book award celebrating and honouring women’s fiction.
Much-loved Hamish Hamilton author Pat Barker makes the longlist with latest book The Silence of the Girls - a retelling of the classic Greek myth of Achilles retold by the witness that time forgot: Briseis, a queen until her city was destroyed and she was enslaved by Achilles, the man who butchered her husband and brothers. Also shortlisted for the recent Costa Book Awards, The Silence of the Girls was described by The Guardian as ‘Mak[ing] you reflect on the cultural underpinnings of misogyny, the women throughout history who have been told by men to forget their trauma... You are in the hands of a writer at the height of her powers.’
Bestselling writer, journalist and critic, Diana Evans, is nominated for her third novel, Ordinary People. An intimate study of identity and parenthood, sex and grief, love and ageing, the book offers a glimpse into the lives of two London couples at a point of reckoning. The Observer called it ‘a deftly observed, elegiac portrayal of modern marriage, and the private – often painful – quest for identity and fulfilment in all its various guises’.
As one of 7 debut novellists to make the longlist, Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott is included for Swan Song. A dazzling debut about the line between gossip and slander, self-creation and self-preservation, Swan Song is the tragic story of Truman Capote and the beautiful, wealthy, vulnerable women he called his Swans. Meeting widespread critical acclaim, the book was described by the Sunday Times as ‘a dazzlingly assured first novel... This clever book, with the moreish astringency of a negroni, is a perfect summer cocktail’.
The full longlist for this year’s prize is available on the Women’s Prize for Fiction website.
The judges for the 2019 prize are Professor Kate Williams (Chair), journalist and writer Dolly Alderton, theatre critic Arifa Akbar, activist and psychotherapist Leyla Hussein, and digital entrepreneur Sarah Wood. The longlist will be whittled down to just six books over the next two months, with the shortlist announced on Monday 29th April.
