Yesterday, the lovely committee in charge of choosing this years’ Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction announced their short list.  These are the six books chosen out of the sixteen originally nominated, and one of them will be this years’ Baileys Women’s Prize winner June 7, 2017.

These book represent an enormous range of settings, from 19th century Kentucky to 1980s Nigeria, and a post-WWII sanatorium, Some give voices to the politically marginalized and historically overlooked, like Thein does in her stunning Do Not Say We Having Nothing, while use their characters identities to turn the world as we know it on its ear, as Alderman does in The Power (when you have a chance to read it, you’ll understand precisely what I am saying).    They also represent a great range of experience–Stay With Me is Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀̀’s debut novel, while Linda Grant won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2000.

“It has been a great privilege to Chair the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in a year which has proved exceptional for writing of both quality and originality,” said Tessa Ross, 2017 Chair of Judges. “It was therefore quite a challenge to whittle this fantastic longlist of 16 books down to only six… These were the six novels that stayed with all of us well beyond the final page.”

And just a reminder, the winner of the award takes home a £30,000 prize, as well as a ‘Bessie’ – a limited edition bronze statue – created by artist Grizel Niven (an extra limited edition, as this is Baileys last year sponsoring the prize).

The shortlisted books are as follows:

Stay With Me Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀̀
The Power  Naomi Alderman (Will be released October 10)
The Dark Circle by Linda Grant (Will be released June 29)
The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
First Love by Gwendoline Riley
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get started on each of these nominated novels–and you can be sure we’ll be announcing the winner after the announcement on June 7, dear readers!