The Women’s Prize has announced its shortlist for fiction, featuring works that explore personal freedom, the search for identity, and the tension between Western values and cultural traditions.
New voices feature heavily on the shortlist, with four of the six entrants being debut novelists. They are Aria Aber, Sanam Mahloudji, Nussaibah Younis and Vale van der Wouden.
Aber’s Good Girl explores the complexities of a dual identity for a teenager who is born in Germany but ashamed of her Afghan heritage.
Younis’s Fundamentally follows a de-radicalisation programme for ISIS women ran by the United Nations in Iraq, and explores the ethical questions surrounding Western intervention.
Mahloudji’sThe Persians, a family drama told through five women whose fate is intertwined with modern Iran, explores the question of whether it’s possible to free ourselves from our past.
Elizabeth Stout’s Tell Me Everything returns to characters from her bestselling novel My Name is Lucy Barton, as the characters narrate their hopes and regrets in their later years. Stout, who is the author of nine other novels, has been longlisted for the prize twice (2014’s The Burgess Boys and 2016’s My Name is Lucy Barton) and shortlisted once for her 2000 book Amy & Isabelle.
The six titles in contention for the £30,000 prize all draw on “the importance of human connection” in different ways, said writer and judging chair Kit de Waal. “What is surprising and refreshing is to see so much humour, nuance and lightness employed by these novelists to shed light on challenging concepts.”
One of the best-known writers on the longlist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie did not make this year’s shortlist for her novel Dream Count. She was shortlisted for all three of her previous novels and won both the 2007 prize and the 25th anniversary “winner of winners” award in 2020.
Other longlisted books were The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches, Amma by Saraid de Silva, Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings, The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell, A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike, Birding by Rose Ruane and The Artist by Lucy Steeds.
journalists Bryony Gordon and Deborah Joseph, and composer Amelia Warner.
This year’s prize was open to novels written in English and published in the UK between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.
The winner will be announced on 12 June alongside the winner of its sister award, the Women’s prize for nonfiction.
Previous winners of the fiction prize include Zadie Smith, Ali Smith and Maggie O’Farrell. Last year, VV Ganeshananthan won for Brotherless Night.
