Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026 Longlist Announced
Sixteen novels are competing for the £30,000 Women’s Prize for Fiction, now in its 31st year, featuring diverse settings from climate-affected islands to a near-future Kolkata.
Authors Katie Kitamura, Susan Choi, Kit de Waal, and Lily King are among those longlisted for this prestigious annual award, which celebrates women’s writing in English. The longlist comprises 16 novels with settings spanning from 1970s Birmingham to East Berlin on the verge of reunification.
Highlighted Authors and Novels
Susan Choi is recognized for her Booker-shortlisted novel Flashlight, a sweeping historical family saga centered on a father’s disappearance and its intergenerational impact. The narrative spans locations including North Korea and Indiana, and has been described as “geopolitically bold” and full of “confident chaos.”
Katie Kitamura, also shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, is longlisted for Audition, which follows an unnamed actor confronted by a younger man claiming to be her son, exploring themes of acting and performance in life.
Kit de Waal returns with The Best of Everything, her second nomination, telling the story of a working-class Caribbean woman in 1970s Birmingham. The novel has been praised as an “understated” and “beautifully rendered” tale.
Lily King’s sixth novel, Heart the Lover, follows a university campus love story into mid-life and has been described as “vivid, moving and witty.”
Complete Longlist
- Gloria Don’t Speak by Lucy Apps (Weatherglass Books)
- Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi (4th Estate)
- Moderation by Elaine Castillo (Atlantic Books)
- Flashlight by Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape)
- Dominion by Addie E Citchens (Europa Editions)
- The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine (Sceptre)
- The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph)
- The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson (Cassava Republic Press)
- The Others by Sheena Kalayil (Fly on the Wall Press)
- Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly (Saraband)
- Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate)
- Audition by Katie Kitamura (Fern Press)
- A and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (Scribner)
- Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Canongate)
- The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal (Tinder Press)
- A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang (Dead Ink)
Virginia Evans is noted for The Correspondent, which portrays the life of a woman in her 70s through letters to friends, family, and strangers.
Judging Panel and Themes
The judging panel, chaired by former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, described the longlist as “international in scope and setting.” It includes nine titles from independent publishers and seven debut novels.
Many novels explore the aftermath of political upheaval. Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi follows a man in exile moving from Palestine to Kuwait, Italy, and New York. The Others by Sheena Kalayil is set during the final days of the Berlin Wall, focusing on three friends’ private lives amid historic change. Alice Evelyn Yang’s A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing incorporates folklore and magical realism to examine colonial trauma.
Environmental themes are central to some works. Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore is set on an island affected by climate collapse, while Megha Majumdar’s A and a Thief imagines a near-future Kolkata suffering flooding and famine.
Several debut authors focus on mothers and children. Wendy Erskine’s The Benefactors is set in contemporary Belfast and explores sexual assault allegations alongside class and future anxieties. Marcia Hutchinson’s The Mercy Step spans the first 11 years of a rebellious girl’s life in 1960s Bradford. Addie E Citchens’ Dominion examines pressures on Black mothers.
Other debut novels include Lucy Apps’s Gloria Don’t Speak, about a 19-year-old woman with a learning disability; Elaine Castillo’s Moderation, featuring a content moderator who falls for her boss; and Rozie Kelly’s Kingfisher, about an academic fixated on a colleague.
Judging Panel Members
Julia Gillard is joined by poet and novelist Mona Arshi, author and broadcaster Salma El-Wardany, writer and comedian Cariad Lloyd, and DJ and author Annie Macmanus.
“These 16 books masterfully demonstrate the power of fiction to examine the messy business of being human,” Gillard said. “From climate change to artificial intelligence, they navigate the issues of our time with urgency and purpose, they immerse us in environments and experiences that are sometimes like our own, but more often are radically different, and they explore identities and perspectives that are often ignored or forgotten, amid those inherently universal and recognisable.”
Next Steps and Previous Winners
A shortlist of six will be announced on 22 April, with the winner revealed on 11 June at a ceremony in London, alongside the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025.
The 2025 winner was Yael van der Wouden for her debut novel The Safekeep, which explores repressed desire and historical amnesia in post-World War II Dutch society. Past winners include Barbara Kingsolver, Maggie O’Farrell, Kamila Shamsie, and Zadie Smith.
To browse all books in the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026 longlist, visit the official website. Delivery charges may apply.
