The clash between Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other and Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport for last year’s Booker prize is set for a replay after both novels made the shortlist for the Orwell award for political fiction.
The £3,000 prize, intended to reward novels that “illuminate major social and political themes”, is in its second year and was won in 2019 by Anna Burns’s Booker winner Milkman. This year, Evaristo’s polyphonic novel about the lives of different generations of black women, already joint winner of last year’s Booker, will compete with five other titles including Ellmann’s 1,000-page stream-of-consciousness. Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning The Nickel Boys, Edna O’Brien’s Girl. Attica Locke’s Heaven, My Home and John Lanchester’s The Wall are also in the running.
