Acclaimed US novelists Susan Choi and Lily King are among the six authors shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, in a lineup dominated by debut writers and independent publishers. The £30,000 award recognises works that explore “the complexity and beauty of the female experience”, according to judging chair and former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard.
Choi’s sixth novel, Flashlight, a historical family saga spanning from small-town Indiana to North Korea, was also shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize. King’s Heart the Lover, also her sixth work, follows a 1980s campus love triangle that reignites in mid-life. Both titles received praise from The Guardian for their scope and wit.
Four debut novelists join the established names: Addie E Citchens for Dominion, set in a Black church community in the American South; Virginia Evans for The Correspondent, an epistolary novel about ageing; Marcia Hutchinson for The Mercy Step, a coming-of-age story set in 1960s Bradford featuring a Windrush generation family; and Rozie Kelly for Kingfisher, about a young academic’s infatuation with an older colleague.
Four of the six shortlisted titles were published by independent presses: Canongate, Europa Editions UK, Cassava Republic Press, and Saraband. Notable omissions from the longlist include Katie Kitamura and Kit de Waal, whose books were both shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.
The winner will be announced on 11 June at a ceremony in London, alongside the winner of the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction. The prize was founded in 1996 after the Booker Prize failed to shortlist any women in 1991.
