The Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 Longlist is announced

The Women's Prize for Fiction, the UK's only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, today announces the 2013 longlist. Now in its eighteenth year - and known from 1996 to 2012 as the Orange Prize for Fiction - the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women in English from throughout the world.

The longlisted books and authors are:

• Kitty Aldridge A Trick I Learned From Dead Men (Jonathan Cape)
• Kate Atkinson Life After Life (Doubleday)
• Ros Barber The Marlowe Papers (Sceptre)
• Shani Boianjiu The People of Forever are Not Afraid (Hogarth Press)
• Gillian Flynn Gone Girl (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Sheila Heti How Should A Person Be? (Harvill Secker)
• A M Homes May We Be Forgiven (Granta)
• Barbara Kingsolver Flight Behaviour (Faber & Faber)
• Deborah Copaken Kogan The Red Book (Virago)
• Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)
• Bonnie Nadzam Lamb (Hutchinson)
• Emily Perkins The Forrests (Bloomsbury Circus)
• Michèle Roberts Ignorance (Bloomsbury)
• Francesca Segal The Innocents (Chatto & Windus)
• Maria Semple Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Elif Shafak Honour (Viking)
• Zadie Smith NW (Hamish Hamilton)
• M L Stedman The Light Between Oceans (Doubleday)
• Carrie Tiffany Mateship with Birds (Picador)
• G Willow Wilson Alif the Unseen (Corvus Books)

The judges for the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction are:

• Miranda Richardson, (Chair), Actor

• Razia Iqbal, BBC Broadcaster and Journalist
• Rachel Johnson, Author, Editor and Journalist
• JoJo Moyes, Author
• Natasha Walter, Feminist Writer and Human Rights Activist

Miranda Richardson, Chair of Judges commented: 'The task of reducing the list of submissions from over 140 to just 20 books was always going to be daunting, but this year's infinite variety has made the task even trickier. The list we have ended up with is, we believe, truly representative of that diversity of style, content and provenance, and contains those works which genuinely inspired the most excitement and passion amongst the judges. I don't anticipate the job becoming easier at the next stage!'

Set up in 1996 to celebrate and promote international fiction by women throughout the world to the widest range of readers possible, the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 is awarded for the best novel of the year written by a woman.  Any woman writing in English - whatever her nationality, country of residence, age or subject matter - is eligible.

This year's longlist honours both new and well-established writers, featuring six first novels alongside two previous Orange Prize winners, Barbara Kingsolver, who is longlisted for her eighth novel, and Zadie Smith longlisted for her fourth novel. Five authors appearing on this year's list have previously been longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, and a further four authors have been previously shortlisted.

The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a 'Bessie', created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.

The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in The Ballroom at the Royal Festival Hall on 5 June 2013. An announcement confirming the new headline sponsor of the Prize will be made in advance of the awards ceremony in June.

Known as the Orange Prize for Fiction between 1996 and 2012, previous winners include Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles (2012),  Téa Obreht for The Tiger's Wife (2011), Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna (2010), Marilynne Robinson for Home (2009), Rose Tremain for The Road Home (2008), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Half of a Yellow Sun (2007), Zadie Smith for On Beauty (2006),  Lionel Shriver for We Need to Talk About Kevin (2005), Andrea Levy for Small Island (2004), Valerie Martin for Property (2003), Ann Patchett for Bel Canto (2002), Kate Grenville for The Idea of Perfection (2001), Linda Grant for When I Lived in Modern Times (2000), Suzanne Berne for A Crime in the Neighbourhood (1999), Carol Shields for Larry's Party (1998), Anne Michaels for Fugitive Pieces (1997), and Helen Dunmore for A Spell of Winter (1996).

Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist announcement: 16 April

Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist readings: 4 June

Awards ceremony: 05 June

Find out more about the longlisted books

Visit the Women's Prize for Fiction website

Join the conversation on Twitter: @womensprize