Orange Prize for Fiction 2012
The Orange Prize for Fiction is one of the most respected, most celebrated and most successful literary awards in the world. Celebrating the very best of women's international fiction, the winner receives a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a 'Bessie', created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.
The Prize's honourary director is novelist Kate Mosse. Every June, a panel of five women, all passionate readers and at the top of their respective professions, choose the winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction. The judges are told that the Prize aims to 'promote accessibility, originality and excellence' in writing by women and advised to forget about reviews, publicity spends, previous reputations and choose only books that move them, that make them think and, more than anything, that they enjoy!
This year's award is chaired by bestselling author Joanna Trollope. The 2012 shortlist is Esi Edugyan for Half Blood Blues, Anne Enright for The Forgotten Waltz, Georgina Harding for Painter of Silence, Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles, Cynthia Ozick for Foreign Bodies and Ann Patchett for State of Wonder.
The Prize is awarded on 30 May, 2012. You can find the official site here.
Exclusive short story from Madeline Miller
The winner of this year's Orange Prize revisits ancient Greece in exclusive short story, Heracles' Bow
The Forgotten Waltz: Extract
An extract of the Orange Prize-shortlisted The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright
Foreign Bodies: Extract
An extract from the Orange Prize-shortlisted Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
Painter of Silence: Extract
An extract from the Orange Prize-shortlisted Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding
State of Wonder: Extract
An extract from Ann Patchett's Orange Prize-shortlisted State of Wonder
Half Blood Blues: Extract
by Esi Edugyan
An extract from the Orange Prize-shortlisted Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Extract: The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles is shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2012
