The Women’s Prize for Fiction has announced the longlist for its 2024 edition, and in a delightful turn of events, two African writers have been included in the shortlist.
Ethiopian-American author Maya Binyam was longlisted for her debut novel Executionerwhile Liberian-born Ghanaian author Peace Adzo Medie was shortlisted for her second novel Nightbloom.
The Women’s Fiction Prize Longlist 2024 includes a total of 16 titles. The jury for the 2024 Prize includes chair Monica Ali, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Laura Dockrill, Indira Varma and Anna Whitehouse.
At the announcement, Monica Ali noted the originality and brilliance that permeated each of the titles on the long list.
“With the power and vibrancy of contemporary women’s fiction very much alive, reading the entries for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction was a joyous experience. Each of these books is brilliant, original and completely irresistible. Collectively, they offer a wide range of compelling narratives from around the world, written with courage, wit, passion and compassion“ he said.
Maya Binyam is a writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Bookforum, Columbia Journalism Review, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. She is an editor at The Paris Review and has previously worked as an editor at Triple Canopy and The New Inquiry and as a lecturer in the New School’s Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program. Her book, Executioner, is the tragicomic journey of a man who returns to his homeland in sub-Saharan Africa after 26 years in exile in America. It’s a hilarious and twisted odyssey, populated by ghosts and crooks, assistants and taxi drivers, relatives and riddles that lead him on a circuitous path to the truth.
Peace Adzo Medie is an academic and writer of both fiction and non-fiction. In 2020 she published her debut novel His only wife as well as her scientific work Global norms and local action: Campaigns to end violence against women in Africa. Her book on the long list, Nightbloom, takes a look at family, class and discrimination in Ghana and the US, in this compelling story of female friendship, the relationships that shape us and the people we never leave behind.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the world’s most successful, important and popular literary awards, championing and amplifying women’s voices and cultivating a global community of readers. The Prize was established in 1996 to highlight and redress the imbalance in coverage, respect and deference given to women writers over their male peers, creating a platform for outstanding writing by women to shine.
The prize is awarded annually to the author of the year’s best complete novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom. The winner receives £30,000, anonymously, and ‘Bessie’, a bronze statuette created by artist Grizel Niven.
The winner of this year’s award will be announced on Women’s Live Awardwhich will take place on June 12, 2024.