Baileys Prize Longlist

The longlist has been announced for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, which celebrates "excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world." I believe it was issued yesterday, in time for International Women's Day. The Prize was previously known as the Orange Prize, and after this year will be known as something else — apparently Baileys is "re-focusing" their marketing strategies and dropping sponsorship of the book prize. The award is one of the highest-profile book prizes in the world and one of the very few specifically focused on women.

The winner will be announced June 7, and will receive £30,000 (about $36,500). The longlisted books are:

Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
Little Deaths by Emma Flint
The Mare by Mary Gaitskill
The Dark Circle by Linda Grant
The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride
Midwinter by Fiona Melrose
The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso
The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Barkskins by Annie Proulx
First Love by Gwendoline Riley
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain

I've got a couple of those title on my "interesting-new-books" list (The Essex Serpent, The Gustav Sonata), but most of the others I'm hearing about for the first time. I did try to read McBride's The Lesser Bohemians last month, but had to abandon it almost immediately — I kept getting tangled up in the stream-of-consciousness confusion. (I'm confused enough on my own.)