The Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2021

The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist for 2021 was announced last Wednesday. The 16 titles are:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
The Golden Rule by Amanda Craig
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
Because of You by Dawn French
Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
Luster by Raven Leilani
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Consent by Annabel Lyon
Nothing But Blue Sky by Kathleen MacMahon
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Summer by Ali Smith

So far, the only longlisted novel I have read is Exciting Times which was also shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award last November and has been one of the most talked about debut novels of 2020. Most of the other six debuts on the longlist have also generated lots of buzz recently, including ‘Luster’ by Raven Leilani and ‘No One Is Talking About This’ by Patricia Lockwood, while the only book on the longlist I hadn’t heard of before is Cherie Jones’ first novel ‘How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House’ which is set in Barbados. This year’s longlist also sees the inclusion of a novel by a trans woman for the first time in ‘Detransition, Baby’ by Torrey Peters.

I have heard nothing but good things about ‘The Vanishing Half’ by Brit Bennett and I am also looking forward to reading ‘Summer’ by Ali Smith, the final part of her four seasons cycle of novels. ‘The Golden Rule’ by Amanda Craig and ‘Unsettled Ground’ by Claire Fuller are also on my radar – Craig’s latest state-of-the-nation novel focuses on a pact made by two strangers to murder each other’s husbands, while Fuller’s fourth novel is about 51-year-old twins who still live with their mother in rural isolation.

Which longlisted books have you read and which ones are you keen to read?