2012 Orange Prize
The shortlist for this year's Orange Prize has just been announced. The prize was established in 1996 to celebrate and promote fiction by women throughout the world to the widest range of readers possible and is awarded for the best novel of the year written by a woman.
Previous winners include Tea Obreht (The Tiger's Wife), Barbara Kingsolver (The Lacuna), Marilynne Robinson (Home), Rose Tremain (The Road Home), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Half of a Yellow Sun), Zadie Smith (On Beauty), Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin), Andrea Levy (Small Island), Valerie Martin (Property), Ann Patchett (Bel Canto), Kate Grenville (The Idea of Perfection), Linda Grant (When I Lived in Modern Times), Suzanne Berne (A Crime in the Neighborhood), Carol Shields (Larry's Party), Anne Michaels (Fugitive Pieces), and Helen Dunmore (A Spell of Winter).
The award ceremony will take place on May 30th. Here are this year's six finalists:
