Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been longlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for her new book Americanah. The award, which honors works written in English by women, was known as the Orange Prize until last year, when the liquor company Bailey’s took over as sponsor. In 2007 she was shortlisted for the same prize – known then as Orange Prize for Fiction – for Purple Hibiscus.
The prize, which comes with an award of 30,000 pounds (a little over $50,000), has been won by Americans for the last five years, a statistic that some British critics and scholars see as a disturbing trend in the international rankings, at least as reflected in literary competitions.
This year’s longlist honours both rising stars of literature and well-established writers, and features six debut writers as well as two previous winners.
Helen Fraser, Chair of Judges, says: “This is a fantastic selection of books of the highest quality – intensely readable, gripping, intelligent and surprising – that you would want to press on your friends, and the judges have been doing just that.”
The judges must now whittle these 20 books to six to be announced on April 7, and the winner of the prize will be revealed on June 4, 2014.
See list Longlisted Books below:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Americanah
Margaret Atwood – MaddAddam
Suzanne Berne – The Dogs of Littlefield
Fatima Bhutto – The Shadow of the Crescent Moon
Claire Cameron – The Bear
Lea Carpenter – Eleven Days
M.J. Carter – The Strangler Vine
Eleanor Catton – The Luminaries
Deborah Kay Davies – Reasons She Goes to the Woods
Elizabeth Gilbert – The Signature of All Things
Hannah Kent – Burial Rites
Rachel Kushner – The Flamethrowers
Jhumpa Lahiri – The Lowland
Audrey Magee – The Undertaking
Eimear McBride – A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing
Charlotte Mendelson – Almost English
Anna Quindlen – Still Life with Bread Crumbs
Elizabeth Strout – The Burgess Boys
Donna Tartt – The Goldfinch
Evie Wyld – All The Birds, Singing