Diana Evans and Emily Dugan longlisted for 2019 Orwell Prize

Longlists for four 2019 Orwell Prizes were announced today, including the inaugural Orwell Prize for Political Fiction sponsored by Richard Blair and A. M. Heath, and Orwell Prize for Political Writing lists, marking the 70th anniversary of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Meanwhile, in the Orwell Prize for Journalism and Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social […]

The Guardian’s Book That Made Me with Oyinkan Braithwaite

The Women’s prize-nominated author on laughing at Eleanor Oliphant and feeling guilty about not reading Les Misérable The book I am currently reading I just started The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. I am curious about all the books on the Women’s prize longlist and shortlist and so far, so good. It is fascinating to […]

‘It’s never just hair’: Author Emma Dabiri on Afro hair and identity

Black hair is political. This is a well established fact. Black and mixed-race women across the globe are ostracized, punished and made to feel ugly simply by virtue of the hair that grows naturally on their heads. Emma Dabiri has a deep understanding of the challenges and complexities of living with tightly coiled Afro hair […]

The Waterstones Interview: Pat Barker on The Silence of the Girls

Lyrical, moving and full of fire, Pat Barker‘s latest novel, The Silence of the Girls is a brilliant re-imagining of The Iliad, as witnessed by the women of the Trojan War. Here, Barker discusses what drew her back to the mythology and the timeless relevance of questioning who tells stories and why it matters. Across a long and acclaimed […]

Half of the Women’s Prize Shortlist represented by Aitken Alexander

SHORTLIST We’re delighted to reveal this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, as chosen by our 2019 judges. The shortlist, which features a diverse range of voices and nationalities, is as follows: The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Milkman by Anna Burns Ordinary People by Diana Evans An American […]

Take a look inside novelist Olivia Sudjic’s London flat

The writer’s home is a calm, organised space – Rebecca Watson interviews Sudjic for the Financial Times. “I’m not sure if you have any interest in these things,” Olivia Sudjic says, as she pokes two teabags into a small teapot, “but today is when Mercury goes retrograde, and we have until one o’clock . . . after that, I’ll […]

The Guardian: Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri review – groundbreaking

The personal becomes political in this highly charged history of black people’s hair If you’re expecting cookie-cutter discourse on the nature of black people’s hair, look away now. Don’t Touch My Hair might take its title from one of the most well-known (if still frustratingly common) aspects of being black in a predominantly white society, but it […]