LONDON — Three debut novelists have made it on to the shortlist for this year's Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction honouring women writers, including one whose book was inspired by her father winning the Washington State lottery.
U.S. author Patricia Wood's “Lottery” is one of six books nominated for the annual prize, worth £30,000 ($60,340) to the winner.
It centres around the narrator Perry, who finds he has more family than he knows what to do with when he wins a $12 million lottery jackpot.
The other first-time novelists on the list are Canadian Heather O'Neill (“Lullabies for Little Criminals”) and Britain's Sadie Jones (“The Outcast”).
Nancy Huston of Canada was nominated for her 11th novel “Fault Lines”, and Britons Charlotte Mendelson (“When We Were Bad”) and Rose Tremain (“The Road Home”) complete the shortlist.
The Road Home follows the fate of Lev, an economic migrant from Eastern Europe who comes to Britain seeking work.
“I'm extremely pleased we have three first novels as well as some very established authors on a list that reflects the scope, variety and international breadth of the Orange Prize,” said Kirsty Lang, chair of the judges.
Notable absentees from the shortlist were Anne Enright's “The Gathering”, which won the 2007 Man Booker Prize, and “The Bastard of Istanbul” by Elif Shafak who was prosecuted in Turkey over comments made by characters in her book about the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915. She was acquitted in 2006.
Now in its 13th year, the Orange Prize has regularly courted controversy, with some writers calling it sexist.
This year 22-year-old pop star Lily Allen was on the panel of judges, but she withdrew earlier this month blaming ill health. The winner will be announced on June 4.
