The US writers join four debut authors in demonstrating ‘the complexity and beauty of the female experience’, said chair of judges Julia Gillard
Acclaimed US novelists Susan Choi and Lily King are among the writers shortlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for fiction, in a lineup dominated by debut authors and independent publishers.
The six titles contending for the £30,000 award range from a US campus love story to a coming of age tale set in 1960s Bradford, but are connected by their consideration of “the complexity and beauty of the female experience”, said the former prime minister of Australia and judging chair Julia Gillard.
Choi is on the list for her sixth novel Flashlight, which was also shortlisted for last year’s Booker prize. A historical family saga, spanning from small town Indiana to North Korea, it reckons with a father’s disappearance, and was described in a Guardian review as “all kinds of big: capacious of intent and scope and language and swagger.”
King is recognised for Heart the Lover, also her sixth work of fiction, in which a 1980s campus love triangle reignites in mid-life. “This story of first love between college kids is vivid, moving and witty,” wrote Rebecca Wait in her Guardian review.
