The 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction: Who made the shortlist?

The shortlist for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction was announced on 26 April. The titles were picked by a panel of judges chaired by broadcaster and writer Louise Minchin.

"This is an exquisite set of ambitious, diverse, thoughtful, hard-hitting and emotionally engaging novels," said Minchin. "My fellow judges and I feel it has been a huge privilege to read these novels, and we are delighted to be part of their journey, bringing them to the attention of more readers from across the world."

The Women's Prize for Fiction, previously known as the Orange Prize for Fiction and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, is among the UK's most prestigious literary prizes. Worth £30,000, it is awarded for the best full-length novel of the year written by a woman and published in the UK. The inaugural award went to Helen Dunmore's A Spell of Winter, while last year's winner was Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness.

The Prize was established in 1996 to laud the achievements of female writers. It came about when a group of professionals in the publishing industry discussed the 1991 Booker Prize shortlist, which did not have titles by women, even though about 60 per cent of novels published that year were by female authors.

The Women's Prize for Fiction is currently managed by the Women's Prize Trust, a registered charity that also runs programmes and initiatives to promote literacy among women, nurturing writers, providing books and promoting books by women. The Prize is sponsored by liqueur brand Baileys and Audible, an online audiobook and podcast service.

A sister prize, the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction, was launched early this year. Also worth £30,000, this prize would be funded for the first three years by the Charlotte Aitken Trust, which was set up by literary agent Gillon Aitken to encourage literary talent and promote the creative arts.

So, let's see who's in the shortlist...


Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris
Duckworth
9780715654590

Much of this novel takes place during the longest siege of a city in the history of modern warfare. When ethnic tensions escalate into violence in Sarajevo in 1992, artist and teacher Zora sends her husband and elderly mother to safety with her daughter in England. Zora stays behind, believing the unrest will soon be over. How was she to know that war would follow and the city will be besieged for nearly four years?


Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Faber & Faber
9780571376476

Barbara Kingsolver, who won the Prize in 2010 with The Lacuna, is once again in contention with this reimagining of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. Born to a teenaged single mother with his dad's good looks and copper-coloured hair, a sharp wit, and fierce survival instincts, Demon fights demons within and without as he struggles to get by while growing up in the poverty-wracked southern Appalachian mountains of Virginia, in the middle of the US opioid crisis.


The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Tinder Press
9781472223845

The short and tragic life of Lucrezia de' Medici, daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, the Duke of Florence, is known to history. Married at the age of 13 to Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1558, Lucrezia died less than three years later, most likely due to pulmonary tuberculosis. However, there were rumours she was poisoned. In this novel, Maggie O’Farrell imagines what it was like for the young noblewoman in Renaissance Italy, married off for political reasons and having to navigate her way in an unwelcoming court.


Pod by Laline Paull
Corsair
9781472156600

Human impact on the oceans is viewed through the lens of a spinner dolphin. As she has come of age, Ea is expected to join in her pod's rituals. However, an ailment she suffers makes it impossible. When catastrophe befalls her family, she leaves the pod and strikes out on her own. The ocean can be a terrifying place, but strange things are also happening: horrible noises in the depths and whole species of fish vanishing, among others. Just as she starts getting used to the solitary life, along comes a group of bottlenose dolphins...


Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks
Vintage Books
9781787333635

Yamaye lives at the Tombstone estate in West London at the dawn of the 1980s with her father. Unsure of her future, she finds escape – and hopefully guidance – in an underground dub reggae club where she and her friends go raving. Through the music, she hopes to reconnect to her Jamaican roots and her missing mother. A relationship with a man promises the future she seeks but it is brutally cut short. Yamaye will find herself in Bristol before finally travelling to Jamaica, but will she find what she has been looking for?


Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
Bloomsbury Publishing
9781526623331

In Northern Ireland in 1975 during the Troubles, Catholic schoolteacher Cushla meets a Protestant barrister in her family's pub and has an affair with him. She also reaches out to one of her students, who is bullied because he comes from a Catholic-Protestant family, out of concern for his well-being. But these are turbulent times, and a sequence of events will upend Cushla's life, threatening everything and everyone she wants to protect.

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The winning title will be announced on 14 June. Which of these look like it has the biggest chance?