Orange Prize short list announced

Orange Prize short list announced NEWS

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This year's Orange Prize for Fiction short list has been announced, with three first-time novelists making the cut.

Former Sesame Street scriptwriter Kathleen Winter's first novel Annabel is short listed for the prize, along with other debut books Grace Williams Says It Loud by Emma Henderson and The Tiger's Wife by Ta Obreht.

Emma Donoghue's Room, Nicole Krauss' Great House and The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna are also contenders.

The literary prize is open to books written in English by women and has been running since 1996. Last years winner was US author Barbara Kingsolver with her sixth novel The Lacuna.

Emma Donoghue's Room, which was shortlisted for last year's Booker Prize, is tipped to be a hot contender. Room is Donoghue's seventh novel and tells the story of Jack, a boy who has never seen the outside world for he has been locked in a room with his mother his whole life.

Winter, who began her career writing for Sesame Street, released her first novel Annabel last year. Annabel tells the story of a hermaphrodite child in remote Eastern Canada.

The Memory of Love, by Aminatta Forna, follows a psychologist who leaves his life in England to live in Sierra Leone, just after the civil war.

Based on experiences of her sister, Emma Henderson's Grace Williams Says It Loud tells the tale of a mute girl in a mental institution who befriends an epileptic.

The Tiger's Wife by Ta Obreht is the story of a young doctor who, in a struggle to make sense of her grandfather's death, goes on a journey inspired by his stories.

The final nominee, Great House, by New York author Krauss is a collection of short stories of a man caring for his dying wife, a poet from Chile and an antiques dealer from Israel.

Broadcaster Bettany Hughes, chair of the judging panel, said 'the verve and scope of storylines pays compliment to the female imagination'.

Hughes will be joined by this year's judges who include BBC presenter Susanna Reid and author Tracy Chevalier, who wrote Girl with a Peal Earring.

The winner of the £30,000 prize award will be announced on 8 June at the Royal Festival Hall in London.