2020 Shortlist readings: Bernardine Evaristo + Jenny Offill
The Women’s Prize Trust is delighted to present the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and our first ever fully digital...
Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practise her other calling: as an unofficial shrink. For years, she has supported her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but then her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. Sylvia has become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right wingers worried about the decline of western civilization.
As she dives into this polarized world, she begins to wonder what it means to keep tending your own garden once you’ve seen the flames beyond its walls. When her brother becomes a father and Sylvia a recluse, Lizzie is forced to acknowledge the limits of what she can do. But if she can’t save others, then what, or who, might save her? And all the while the voices of the city keep floating in–funny, disturbing, and increasingly mad.
Podcast
Listen to Zing Tsjeng speak to the six incredible authors shortlisted for the 2020 Prize
Listen to the podcast
Maggie O'Farrell
Bernardine Evaristo
Natalie Haynes
Angie Cruz
Hilary Mantel
Jenny Offill
Natalie Haynes
Candice Carty-Williams
Hilary Mantel
Ann Patchett
Anne Enright
Luan Goldie
Deepa Anappara
Jing-Jing Lee
Jenny Offill
Claire Lombardo
Angie Cruz
Edna O'Brien
Maggie O'Farrell
Jacqueline Woodson
Bernardine Evaristo
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Barbara Kingsolver
Ruth Ozeki
Susanna Clarke
Maggie O'Farrell
Tayari Jones
Kamila Shamsie
Naomi Alderman
Lisa McInerney
Ali Smith
Eimear McBride
A.M. Homes
Madeline Miller
Téa Obreht
Barbara Kingsolver
Marilynne Robinson
Rose Tremain
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Lionel Shriver
Andrea Levy
Valerie Martin
Ann Patchett
Kate Grenville
Linda Grant
Suzanne Berne
Carol Shields
Anne Michaels
Helen Dunmore
The Women’s Prize Trust is delighted to present the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and our first ever fully digital...
We are absolutely thrilled to reveal this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, in the Prize’s 25th year. The shortlist...
Tune into host Vick Hope and a line-up of incredible guests on our weekly podcast full of unmissable book recommendations.
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