Women’s Prize 2021 Shortlist Announced

The 2021 Women’s Prize Shortlist was announced yesterday, and I’m so impressed by this list! I’ve read three of the titles on the shortlist (Piranesi, The Vanishing Half and Transcendent Kingdom) and thought they were all terrific books. It always makes me excited to see great books being recommended, so I was delighted to see this list.

I’m definitely going to look into the other titles on their shortlist, since clearly these judges have good taste! I’m especially interested in Unsettled Ground, since Claire Fuller is an author I’ve been meaning to check out. So, perhaps you’ll see that review here eventually (though my reading list is pretty lengthy right now).

The full shortlist is here (and you can find more details about these titles at the end of this post):

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half
Susanna Clarke, Piranesi
Claire Fuller, Unsettled Ground
Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom
Cherie Jones, How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House
Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This

The rest of the longlist (all the titles that didn’t make the cut) are here:

Clare Chambers, Small Pleasures
Amanda Craig, The Golden Rule
Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times
Avni Doshi, Burnt Sugar
Dawn French, Because Of You
Raven Leilani, Luster
Annabel Lyon, Consent
Kathleen McMahon, Nothing But Blue Sky
Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby
Ali Smith, Summer

Bernardine Evaristo led the panel of judges and “is joined on the judging panel by podcaster, author and journalist, Elizabeth Day; TV and radio presenter, journalist and writer, Vick Hope; print columnist and writer, Nesrine Malik; and news presenter and broadcaster, Sarah-Jane Mee.” And in case it’s not obvious from the title, the Women’s Prize is awarded to the best books written by women that are published in a given year.