Orange Prize for Fiction

The Orange Prize for Fiction celebrates women's writing. It is awarded annually for the best full-length novel by a female author published in the UK that year. It has become one of the most prestigious awards in the literary calendar and we have been involved since 2000. Orange also awards a prize for New Writers.

NEW Orange Prize for Fiction Readers' Day podcast featuring interviews with authors including Catherine O'Flynn and Sadie Jones.

NEW Orange Prize for Fiction Readers' Day vodcasts taken by young people from our new groupthing social reading website.

Orange Prize 2009

Libraries can promote the Orange Prize for Fiction longlist from mid-March 2009 and the shortlist from April 2009.

The following novels are on the Orange Prize 2009 longlist:

  • Debra Adelaide, The Household Guide to Dying
  • Gaynor Arnold, Girl in a Blue Dress
  • Lissa Evans, Their Finest Hour and a Half
  • Bernadine Evaristo, Blonde Roots
  • Ellen Feldman, Scottsboro
  • Laura Fish, Strange Music
  • V.V. Ganeshananthan, Love Marriage
  • Allegra Goodman, Intuition
  • Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness
  • Samantha Hunt, The Invention of Everything Else
  • Michelle de Kretser, The Lost Dog
  • Deirdre Madden, Molly Fox's Birthday
  • Toni Morrison, A Mercy
  • Gina Ochsner, The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
  • Marilynne Robinson, Home
  • Preeta Samarasan, Evening is the Whole Day
  • Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows
  • Curtis Sittenfeld, American Wife
  • Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans
  • Ann Weisgarber, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

The shortlist is announced on Tuesday 21 April and the winner on Wednesday 3 June. The Orange Award for New Writers shortlist is announced on Tuesday 7 April.

Orange Prize Readers' Day

The Reading Agency is organising the third annual Orange Readers' Day - this year in Birmingham on 9 May. Four hundred readers will have the opportunity to spend time with writers and literary figures connected with the Prize, and all the writers' books will be available for sale at the event at Birmingham's Conservatoire.

More information and booking details in the Readers' Day Leaflet available to download from Resources.

Running the Orange Prize

If you sign up to the Orange Prize for Fiction you'll receive the free longlist and shortlist promotional materials and a resources pack full of great ideas about how to run the promotion. You'll also get the support of a Reading Agency project manager and the chance to win one of three pairs of tickets for the awards ceremony. What more could you ask for?

If you still need persuading then we can also tell you that the Orange Prize for Fiction is an extremely flexible promotion. You can get involved at a basic level by running displays at either the shortlist or longlist stage or you can use it to broaden your work with local readers. Many libraries choose to promote the Prize from the longlist of 20 books as this gives them a wider range of titles. The choice is yours.

Orange Prize 2008 winners

The Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008 winner was The Road Home by Rose Tremain. The winner of the New Writers Award 2008 is Inglorious by Joanna Kavenna.

To see video of the award ceremony visit the Orange Prize website.

You can download the longlist and shortlist from Resources and also find out who was on the 2008 judging panel for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and Orange Broadband Award for New Writers.