The shortlist has been announced for the £30,000 (about $37,620) Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, which "celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women's writing from throughout the world." The winner will be named June 7 in London. This year's shortlisted titles are:
Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀̀
The Power by Naomi Alderman
The Dark Circle by Linda Grant
The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
First Love by Gwendoline Riley
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
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The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance has unveiled its "Long (Long, Looooong) List" for the 2017 Southern Book Prize (formerly the SIBA Book Award). Finalists for each category will be announced April 15, with winners named on July 4, "Independents Day."
Noting that this year's longlist features an expanded collection of prize categories, SIBA executive director Wanda Jewell said, "Our goal is to have the nominations drive the categories rather than forcing all nominations into a category they might not fit. Rather than being married to a certain set of categories like 'fiction,' 'nonfiction,' 'children's,' we can open the award up to new categories driven by the nominations." SIBA used the BISAC designations of nominated books to help determine the award categories for the year, with fiction expanded to seven categories and nonfiction to three separate categories.
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The Simpson Family Literary Project has announced the four finalists for the inaugural Simpson Family Literary Prize, which awards $50,000 to "an author of fiction in the middle of a burgeoning career." The finalists are:
T. Geronimo Johnson, author of Welcome to Braggsville and Hold It 'Til It Hurts.
Valeria Luiselli, author of The Story of My Teeth and Faces in the Crowd.
Lori Ostlund, author of After the Parade and The Bigness of the World.
Dana Spiotta, author of Innocents and Others and Stone Arabia, among other novels.
The winner will be named in early May.