Staff Picks
The 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction
- Adele C.
- Thursday, March 14
Collection
The Women's Prize for Fiction is an annual award that celebrates outstanding, original full-length fiction written by women in English from around the world. Established in 1996, the prize aims to promote diversity and excellence in literature, offering a platform for women's voices to be heard and recognized. It not only highlights the literary achievements of women writers but also encourages a wider readership for their work.
Hangman
Published in 2023
"A shockingly original first novel about exile, diaspora, and the impossibility of Black refuge in America and beyond"-- Provided by publisher.
And then She Fell
A Novel
Published in 2023
"From the bestselling author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, a fierce, gripping novel about Native life, motherhood and mental health that follows a young Mohawk woman who discovers that the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences. On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be in life: she's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her ever-charming husband Steve--a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture--is nothing but supportive; and they've just moved into a new home in a wealthy neighbourhood in Toronto, a generous gift from her in-laws. But Alice could not feel like more of an imposter. She isn't connecting with Dawn, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their picture-perfect neighbours, amongst whom she's the sole Indigenous resident. Even when she does have a moment to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story. At first, Alice is convinced her discomfort is of her own making. She has gotten everything she always dreamed of, after all. But then strange things start happening. She finds herself losing bits of time, hearing voices she can't explain, and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her neighbours' passive aggression begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve urges her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong, and that in her creation story lies the key to her, and Dawn's, survival. . . . She just has to finish it before it's too late. Told in Alice's raw and darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching look at inherited trauma, womanhood, denial and false allyship, that speeds to an unpredictable--and unforgettable--climax"-- Provided by publisher.
The Wren, the Wren
A Novel
Published in 2023
"Nell McDaragh never knew her grandfather, the celebrated Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless and wryly self-assured, at twenty-two Nell leaves her mother Carmel's orderly home to find her own voice as a writer (mostly online, ghost-blogging for an influencer) and to live a poetical life. As she chases obsessive love, damage, and transcendence, in Dublin and beyond, her grandfather's poetry seems to guide her home. Nell's mother, Carmel McDaragh, knows the magic of her Daddo's poetry too well--the kind of magic that makes women in their nighties slip outside for a kiss and then elope, as her mother Terry had done. In his poems to Carmel, Phil envisions his daughter as a bright-eyed wren ascending in escape from his hand. But it is Phil who departs, abandoning his wife and two young daughters. Carmel struggles to reconcile "the poet" with the father whose desertion scars her life, along with that of her fiercely dutiful sister and their gentle, cancer-ridden mother. To distance herself from this betrayal, Carmel turns inward, raising Nell, her daughter, and one trusted love, alone"-- Provided by publisher.
Brotherless Night
A Novel
Published in 2023
"Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war subsumes Sri Lanka, her dream takes a different path as she watches those around her, including her four beloved brothers, swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. She must ask herself: is it possible for anyone to move through life without doing harm? Sashi begins working as a medic at a field hospital for the militant Tamil Tigers, who, following years of state discrimination and violence, are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. But after the Tigers murder one of her teachers, and the arrival of Indian peacekeepers brings further atrocities, she turns to one of her professors, a feminist and dissident who invites her to join in a dangerous, secret project of documenting human rights violations as a mode of civil resistance to war. In gorgeous, fearless writing, Ganeshananthan captures furious mothers marching to demand news of their disappeared sons; a young student attending the hunger strike of an equally young militant; and a feminist reading group that tries to side with community and justice over any single political belief. Set during the early years of Sri Lanka's thirty-year civil war, and based on over a decade of research, Movement explores the blurred lines between formal participation in conflict and civilian life. This is a heartrending portrait of one woman's moral journey, and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home"-- Provided by publisher.
Restless Dolly Maunder
Published in 2023
Searching for love and independence, Dolly Maunder works her way through a world of limits and obstacles to make a life she could call her own no mater what the cost.
Enter Ghost
A Novel
Published in 2023
"A bold, evocative new novel from the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 and Betty Trask Award winner Isabella Hammad that follows actress Sonia as she returns to Palestine and takes a role in a West Bank production of Hamlet. After years away from her family's homeland, and healing from an affair with an established director, stage actress Sonia Nasir returns to Palestine to visit her older sister Haneen. Though the siblings grew up spending summers at their family home in Haifa, Sonia hasn't been since the second intifada and the deaths of her grandparents. While Haneen stayed and made a life commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her burgeoning acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new. Once at Haneen's, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertrude's lines in Classical Arabic and spending more time in Ramallah than in Haifa with a dedicated group of men from all over historic Palestine who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, each want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many invasive and violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home. A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad's highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation"-- Provided by publisher.
8 Lives of a Century-old Trickster
A Novel
Published in 2023
"Life near the North Korean border is a zero-sum game, an ongoing battle in which you either win or you lose. This dangerous, shadowed netherworld is home to an unforgettable woman known only as the "trickster." Inspired by the story of Lee's great aunt, one of the oldest women to escape alone from North Korea, 8 Lives of a Century Old Trickster consists of eight dark and spellbinding chapters that follow this remarkable character and her family as they struggle to survive during the most turbulent times of modern Korean history. Mirinae Lee's trickster is a shapeshifter--throughout the course of these interconnected chapters she is a slave, an escape artist, a murderer, a terrorist, a spy, a lover, and a mother--a woman who must often choose the unthinkable to survive war and conquest in Korea. Her story is a beguiling, complex tale of love and survival that will keep you riveted--and speculating--until the very end thanks to Lee's brilliant talent for sleight of hand. A fascinating look at survival, trauma, and family, 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster is an incredible literary debut from a bright new talent."-- Publisher's website.
River East, River West
A Novel
Published in 2024
Set against the backdrop of developing modern China, a new novel is a coming-of-age tale, part family and social drama, as it follows two generations searching for belonging and opportunity in a rapidly changing world.
The Blue, Beautiful World
Published in 2023
"As first contact transforms Earth, a team of gifted visionaries race to create a new future"-- Provided by publisher.
Western Lane
A Novel
Published in 2023
After the death of her mother, eleven-year-old Gopi, who has been playing squash since she was a small child, is enlisted in a quietly brutal training regimen by her father, and soon the game becomes her world as she slowly distances herself from her sisters in hopes of becoming the best.
Nightbloom
A Novel
Published in 2023
When Selasi and Akorfa were young girls in Ghana, they were more than just cousins; they were inseparable. Selasi was exuberant and funny, Akorfa quiet and studious. They would do anything for each other, imploring their parents to let them be together, sharing their secrets and desires and private jokes. Then Selasi begins to change, becoming hostile and quiet; her grades suffer and she builds a space around herself, shutting Akorfa out. Meanwhile, Akorfa is accepted to an American university with the goal of becoming a doctor. Although hopeful that she can create a fuller life as a woman in America, she discovers the insidious ways that racism places obstacles in her path once she leaves Ghana. It takes a crisis to bring the friends back together, with Selasi's secret revealed and Akorfa forced to reckon with her role in their estrangement. A riveting depiction of class and family in Ghana, a compelling exploration of memory, and an eye-opening story of life as an African-born woman in the United States, Nightbloom is above all a gripping and beautifully written novel attesting to the strength of female bonds in the face of societies that would prefer to silence women.
Ordinary Human Failings
A Novel
Published in 2024
"It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the "peasants"--ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star seems set to rise when he stumbles across a sensational scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents beloved across the neighborhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and "bad apples": the Greens"-- Provided by publisher.