The 2008 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction Longlist

On March 18, the longlist for the 2008 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction was announced. Since its inception 1995, the Prize has become one of the most prestigious literary awards in the UK, and the only one to annually recognize excellence, originality and accessibility in women's writing.

The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on June 4th, and will receive a cash prize of £30,000, as well as a limited edition bronze  known as a 'Bessie.' Previous winners include Zadie Smith, Lionel Shriver, Andrea Levy, Ann Patchett, Carol Shields and Helen Dunmore.

The longlist for the 2008 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction is:

THE BLOOD OF FLOWERS by Anita Amirrezvani (Headline Review / Little, Brown)
THE ROOM OF LOST THINGS by Stella Duffy (Virago)
THE KEEP by Jennifer Egan
(Abacus / Anchor) THE GATHERING by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape / Grove Press)
THE CLOTHES ON THEIR BACKS by Linda Grant (Virago)
THE MASTER BEDROOM by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan Cape / Picador)
FAULT LINES by Nancy Huston(Atlantic Books / McArthur & Company)
SORRY by Gail Jones (Harvil / Secker)
THE OUTCAST by Sadie Jones (Chatto & Windus / Harper)
THE VOLUPTUOUS DELIGHTS OF PEANUT BUTTER AND JAM by Lauren Liebenberg(Virago)
WHEN WE WERE BAD by Charlotte Mendelson (Picador / Houghton Mifflin)
IN THE DARK by Deborah Moggach (Chatto & Windus / Vintage)
MISTRESS by Anita Nair(BlackAmber / St. Martin's Griffin)
LULLABIES FOR LITTLE CRIMINALS by Heather O’Neill (Quercus / Harper Perennial)
THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL by Elif Shafak (Viking)
THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ by Dalia Sofer (Picador)
THE END OF MR. Y by Scarlett Thomas (Canongate / Harvest)
MONSTER LOVE by Carol Topolski (Fig Tree) THE ROAD HOME by Rose Tremain (Chatto & Windus / Little, Brown)
LOTTERY by Patricia Wood (William Heinemann / Putnam)

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The 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction

Lionel Shriver has won the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction with her seventh novel, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, a stunning examination of how tragedy affects a town, a marriage, and a family.

Shriver got a lot of attention for admitting that she had really wanted to win. She thinks it would have been different for a male writer. "Throughout the whole Orange prize experience I was confronted with evidence that women are uncomfortable with naked ambition, trained to have low expectations, embarrassed by head-to-head competition, and virtually obliged to act abashed when they win. In contrast to a certain other sex that will go unmentioned."

Runners-up included:

Joolz Denby for BILLIE MORGAN
Jane Gardam for OLD FILTH
Sheri Holman for THE MAMMOTH CHEESE
Marina Lewycka for A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN
Maile Meloy for LIARS AND SAINTS

The Orange Prize for Fiction is the UK's largest annual literary award for a single novel. The main criteria is that the novel is by a woman writing in English and published in Britain between April 1 and March 31 of the year the prize is awarded. The Orange Prize aims to celebrate novels of excellence, originality and accessibility, and to promote women writers to as wide a range of male and female readers as possible. The annual prize money of £30,000, along with a bronze figurine created by Grizel Niven known as the "Bessie," are anonymously endowed.

More information about the Orange Prize can be found at http://www.orangeprize.co.uk.

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