Women’s prize for fiction: tales of power, agency, ageing and connection – six experts review the shortlist |
The Women’s prize for fiction has been awarded to a female author of any nationality for the best novel written in English since 1996. In its 30th year, it is now one of the most influential literary awards in the world.
The 2026 shortlist explores themes of power, agency, ageing and connection. The list reflects the prize’s drive to support new and emerging female talent with four debuts.
Here we have enlisted six experts to guide you through the nominations for 2026.
Read more: Women’s prize for non-fiction: powerful biographies, moving histories and creative approaches to health – six experts review the shortlist
Flashlight by Susan Choi
Susan Choi’s Flashlight opens with a disorienting event. Ten-year-old Louisa and her father Serk walk along a seaside breakwater at dusk, a flashlight in hand. By morning, Louisa is found, barely alive. Serk is missing and presumed drowned. Instead of offering immediate answers, the novel follows three intertwined lives – Serk, Louisa and Anne – across continents and decades.
What begins as a mystery expands into intimate family drama that takes in broader historical shifts, spanning across the Pacific and from the 1970s onwards. Serk, an ethnic Korean born in Japan, emigrates to the US and navigates a life shaped by statelessness and historical upheaval. Anne, Louisa’s American mother, embodies another thread of rupture and inheritance. Together, their stories form a constellation of absence and unresolved loss.
Choi illuminates the hidden currents of identity, migration and disappearance with remarkable skill. Flashlight is an ambitious, emotionally resonant work that rewards close reading.
Sojin Lim is a reader in Asia Pacific studies
The Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly
Kingfisher follows an unnamed narrator and the transformation of his most important relationships – with his lover, his partner, his mother and a........