Orange Prize for Fiction: Longlist announced

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Orange Prize for Fiction: Longlist announced

March 16, 2011 by sarahefranklin

The longlist for the 2011 Orange prize for Fiction was announced this morning; the full list is here:

(photo c/o http://kristiej.blogspot.com/)

It’s particularly interesting to see that nine of the twenty novels are debuts, compared with seven in 2010; not an insignificant rise. Whether calculated or not (and I’m sure the judges would assert not), the increase in focus on first-timers seems part of an overall move to raise the profile of new novelists. This year has seen a Waterstone’s promotion centered around eleven new authors, and the BBC’s Culture Show ran a ‘Twelve of the Best New Novelists’ programme to tie in with World Book Night earlier this month. Much has been written about what this amounts to; realistically, we won’t know the answer to that for another six months or so, when a real sense of sales patterns for these new authors becomes more visible.

For now, though, I’m off to track down the longlisted books here, starting with the newbies. And let’s start the countdown clock on the grumbles about female-only lists being ‘unfair’…

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Posted in Books, Media, Women | Tagged Books, Culture Show, Orange Prize 2011, Waterstone's, World Book Night 2011 | 3 Comments

3 Responses

on March 17, 2011 at 2:28 pm | Reply Ali

I love longlists. At a first glance, and having read very few of those books, I’d offer a completely unscientific opinion that Jennifer Egan is surely a strong contender.
on March 17, 2011 at 2:56 pm | Reply Sinéad Gleeson

Shamefully, I’ve only read Room and Great House. I have a copy of Tishani Doshi’s book, and keep meaning to read it.

A good friend (whose book judgement I trust) raved about Jennifer Egan, so I must check that out.
- on March 17, 2011 at 4:07 pm | Reply Ali
  
  Egan’s a stunning writer. I’m not crazy about her early novels, but her short stories are SO stylishly written and enjoyable. You could probably find some of them online in the New Yorker archives.
  
  The more I look at the longlist, the more I think it’s going to be quite a fight. Tea Obrecht is also surely in with a chance – I don’t think her novel is actually out yet but apparently it’s causing all kinds of fuss. And Emma Donoghue might yet get the nod.