Alicia Elliott's novel And Then She Fell longlisted for $51K Women's Prize for Fiction

And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott has made the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction longlist.

Since 1996, the £30,000 prize (approx. $51,876.52 Cdn) annually celebrates the best novel written in English by a woman. Now in its 29th year, the prize seeks to highlight women writers and create a platform wherein they may be recognized in equal measure to their male peers.

• Get your first look at Alicia Elliott's And Then She Fell

And Then She Fell is a horror novel which follows a young woman named Alice struggling to navigate the early days of motherhood and live up to the unrealistic expectations of those around her.

"With the strength and vitality of contemporary women's fiction very much in evidence, reading the entries for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction has been a joyful experience," said British writer Monica Ali, chair of the judging panel.

Elliott is a Mohawk writer currently based in Brantford, Ont. Her writing has been published most recently in Room, Grain and The New Quarterly. She is the only author living in Canada to make this year's longlist.

And Then She Fell is Elliot's debut novel. She is also the author of the nonfiction book A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, a columnist for CBC Arts and CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2019. She was chosen by Tanya Talaga as the 2018 recipient of the RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award.

LISTEN | Alicia Elliott talks about her debut novel on The Sunday Magazine:

The Sunday Magazine22:11Alicia Elliott on fiction, motherhood and mental illness

Following her acclaimed essay collection A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Mohawk writer Alicia Elliott is back with a new novel that draws on her own deeply personal experiences to tell a story of motherhood, mental illness and intergenerational trauma. And Then She Fell follows Alice, a young Haudenosaunee mother who goes through a kind of looking glass, as she deals with postpartum depression and married life away from her family and traditions. It’s a story of difficult truths, told with humour, horror and a bit of surrealism. Elliott joins Rebecca Zandbergen to talk about the novel, the personal experiences that inspired it, and best practices for sharing difficult stories – both in fiction and beyond.

The list of 16 longlisted titles includes first-time nominees Barbadian writer Karen Lord, Liberian writer Peace Adzo Medie and British-Palestinian writer Isabella Hammad. Of the nominees, Australian author Kate Grenville is the only previous winner of the prize. Irish writer Anne Enright was also previously a finalist. 

The full longlist is:

• Hangman by Maya Binyam
• In Defence of the Act by Effie Black
• And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott
• The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright
• The Maiden by Kate Foster
• Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan
• Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville
• Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
• Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
• 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee
• The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord
• Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
• Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie
• Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
• River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure
• A Trace of Sun by Pam Williams

The 2024 longlist was announced on March 8, International Women's Day.

The shortlist of six novels will be announced on April 24 and the winner will be announced on June 13. In addition to the prize money, this year's winner will also receive the "Bessie," a bronze statue made by the late British sculptor, Grizel Niven.

The judges for the 2024 prize are author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, author and visual artist Laura Dockrill, actor Indira Varma and author Anna Whitehouse.

Canadians who have won the award include Toronto's Anne Michaels for her 1996 novel Fugitive Pieces and Winnipeg's Carol Shields for her 1997 novel Larry's Party.

Other past winners include Maggie O'Farrell, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith.