More than half of this year’s longlist for the Women’s prize for fiction are debuts, with nine first novels, including Trespasses by Louise Kennedy and I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel, up for the £30,000 award. The debut novelists are up against previous Women’s prize-winning authors Maggie O’Farrell, who won in 2020 for Hamnet, and Barbara Kingsolver, who won in 2010 for The Lacuna, and who have been chosen this year for their novels The Marriage Portrait and Demon Copperhead respectively.
Past Women’s prize shortlistees Natalie Haynes, Laline Paull and Elizabeth McKenzie have all also made this year’s longlist, while twice-Booker shortlisted NoViolet Bulawayo and Booker longlisted Sophie Mackintosh have been nominated for the first time.
