The longlist for the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced.

Sarah Sands, Chair of the judging panel, says: ‘What is striking about the list, apart from the wealth of talent, is that women writers refuse to be pigeon-holed. We have searing social realism, adventure, comedy, poetic truths, ingenious plots and unforgettable characters. Women of the world are a literary force to be reckoned with.’

Here is the full longlist of 16 titles:

• H(A)PPY by Nicola Barker
• The Idiot by Elif Batuman
• Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon
• Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig
• Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
• The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
• Sight by Jessie Greengrass
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife by Meena Kandasamy
• Elmet by Fiona Mozley
• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
• See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt
• A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert
• Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
• The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

The Women’s Prize for Fiction celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world. The winner receives a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.

The 2017 shortlist of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced on Monday 23 April. Find out more about here.