Orange Prize Shortlist Announced

The shortlist for this year’s Orange Prize for fiction has been announced. The nominees for the 17th annual award for excellence in women’s fiction are:

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright
Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

I’ve not read any of the shortlisted book, but am shocked that there was no room on the list for Erin Morgenstern’s inventive The Night Circus.

The winner, who will receive £30,000 and a bronze statue, will be revealed at a ceremony on 30th May.

Have you read any of the shortlisted books? What is your pick for the prize? Let me know in the comments.