The shortlist for the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced. This Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.

Kate Williams, Chair of the judging panel, described the books as: ‘fiction at its best – brilliant, courageous and utterly captivating … We fell totally in love with these books and the amazing worlds they created.’

The shortlisted titles are:

• 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 Marriage by Tayari Jones
• Circe by Madeline Miller

The 2019 winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction will be revealed on 5 June, and will receive 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.

Find out more about the Women’s Prize for Fiction here.