If you’re a fan of great fiction written by women – you should know about the Orange Prize, which is set up to honour exactly that. And what a great time for you to discover it, because they’ve just released their shortlist for this year’s award:

Ellen Feldman for Scottsboro
Samantha Harvey for The Wilderness
Samantha Hunt for The Invention of Everything Else
Deirdre Madden for Molly Fox’s Birthday
Marilynne Robinson for Home
Kamila Shamsie for Burnt Shadows

The Orange Prize was set up in the early 1990s as a means of showcasing talent in women’s writing, after a group of people in the UK literary scene commented that many major book prizes weren’t recognizing the achievements of female writers. The very first Orange Prize went to Helen Dunmore for A Spell of Winter. The prize continues to thrive, even as other major book awards now have more balance between male and female nominees.