The Orange Prize for Fiction
The Orange Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women's fiction writing throughout the world.
Vote online for your favourite shortlisted title and help decide on Dorset's 2012 Orange Prize winner. You can find or request the Orange Prize books at your local library. The UK winner will be announced on 30th May 2012.
Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
A novel about African-American and Afro-German jazz musicians whose music is banned under the Nazi regime, which revisits the survivors 50 years on.
The Forgotten Waltz - Anne Enright
Gina's story of love and betrayal set in Dublin's boom years, dizzy on Sauvignon Blanc, sex and success but like the economic bubble, this dizzying rush can't last. ...
Painter of Silence - Georgina Harding
A portrait of Romania during and after the Second World War. A deaf-mute man, traumatised by his wartime experiences, begins to draw the past for a young nurse with whom he shared a childhood connection.
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
This poetic but muscular American debut revisits the siege of Troy to show the human side of the demigod warrior Achilles, told from the point of view of his lover, Patroclus.
Foreign bodies - Cynthia Ozick
The year is 1952, and teacher Bea Nightingale has been despatched to Europe by her hectoring brother in search of her nephew, Julian.
State of Wonder - Ann Patchett
On the banks of the Rio Negro in Brazil, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women forever but the researcher sent to investigate meets an untimely death...
