Brit Bennett & Yaa Gyasi among 6 finalists for $51K Women's Prize for Fiction
CBC Books | | Posted: April 28, 2021 7:48 PM | Last Updated: April 29, 2021
The award celebrates fiction by women from around the world
American writer Brit Bennett and Ghanaian American writer Yaa Gyasi are among the six finalists for the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction.
The £30,000 ($51,543.15 Cdn) prize recognizes the year's best novel written by a woman in English. Writers from around the world are eligible.
Bennett is nominated for The Vanishing Half.
The Vanishing Half is a multi-generational story that explores race, identity, family and love, revolving around identical twin sisters who flee from their hometown in rural Louisiana when they're 16 years old. As they embark on separate lives, Stella and Desiree, who are light-skinned Black women, choose to live in different worlds: Stella "passes" as white, while Desiree marries "the darkest man she could find."
The Vanishing Half debuted at number one and spent nine weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. HBO plans to adapt the novel as a limited series, with Bennett as an executive producer.
"The question of race is at the heart of The Vanishing Half," Bennett told Eleanor Wachtel on Writers & Company.
Gyasi is a finalist for Transcendent Kingdom.
Transcendent Kingdom tells the story of a young Ghanaian-American neuroscientist named Gifty, who turns to the slow, methodical work of science as she wrestles with the impact of addiction, depression, and grief on her family. It is set in Huntsville, Ala., where Gyasi grew up after her family immigrated to the U.S. from Ghana.
Rounding out the shortlist are Piranesi by English writer Susanna Clarke, Unsettled Ground by English writer Claire Fuller, No One is Talking About This by American Patricia Lockwood and How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Barbados writer Cherie Jones.
"We are excited to present a gloriously varied and thematically rich exploration of women's fiction at its finest," jury chair Bernardine Evaristo said in a press statement. "Fiction by women defies easy categorization or stereotyping, and all of these novels grapple with society's big issues expressed through thrilling storytelling. We feel passionate about them, and we hope readers do too."
The winner will be announced on July 7, 2021.
Joining Evaristo on this year's jury is author and journalist Elizabeth Day, journalist and broadcaster Vick Hope, columnist Nesrine Malik and reporter Sarah-Jane Mee.
Consent by Vancouver author Annabel Lyon made the longlist, but did not advance to the shortlist.
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.
Last year's winner was Irish writer Maggie O'Farrell for Hamnet, which was published as Hamnet & Judith in Canada.
Other past winners include Kamila Shamsie, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith.