The £30,000 Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025 Longlist

The Women’s Prize for Fiction in London releases its 16-book longlist, which includes nine debut publications.

Image: Women’s Prize for Fiction

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

A Shortlist Is Expected on April 2

You’re not wrong in feeling that you just heard from the Women’s Prize in the United Kingdom. You did. That was the longlist announcement of the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction on February 12.

Today (March 4), it’s a Women’s Prize longlist again, but this time it’s the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the flagship contest of the franchise.

While that may cause some confusion for some, the genuine wisdom here is that the Women’s Prize is not trying to get your (and our) attention for an award announcement during next week’s London Book Fair (March 11 to 13), when publishing’s collective attention span is no bigger than the cramped Olympia London complex.

Today’s timing of the fiction longlist release also gets the program close on the calendar to International Women’s Day, which is again on March 8, Saturday.

Each of the two Women’s Prizes will hand an anonymously endowed £30,000 (US$38,123) to its winner on June 12. In the figurines department, the winner of the nonfiction award will get a copy of the “Charlotte” piece by Ann Christopher and the winner of this one, the fiction award, will get a copy of the “Bessie” by Grizel Niven.

The shortlist for this prize in fiction is to be released on April 2. The shortlist for the prize in nonfiction will be released on March 26.

Related article: Women’s 2024 Prize Winners V.V. Ganeshananthan and Naomi Klein

In the fiction longlist you see today, there are nine writers’ debut publications, one more than last year. Of course, a writer’s “debut” as it’s called in contests’ promotional copy is often not the first book she or he has written. What the contests usually mean by a “debut” is the debut publication by that writer—the first book to make it to publication.

The international breakdown on today’s longlist gives us the work of six British writers, three Americans, one Moroccan-American, one German, one Dutch-Israeli writer, one Irish author, one New Zealander, one Nigerian, and one South African. The Women’s Prizes are two of several competitions in England that subscribe to the idea of a really long longlist. After putting forward 16 books on the longlist, they’ll dismiss 10 of them for a six-book shortlist.

The work of five independent publishers is represented here, with titles from Bloomsbury, Canongate, Holland House, Scotland Street Press and Weatherglass. Eleven titles, then, are produced by the Big Four.

Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025 Longlist

‘Hugely Imaginative Books’

Jurors for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction are, from left, Deborah Joseph; Amelia Warner; Kit de Waal; Diana Evans, and Bryony Gordon. Image: Women’s Prize for Fiction

In a comment of rationale on the longlist, the jury chair Kit de Waal is quoted today, saying, “It has been an absolute honor to be immersed in so many utterly exhilarating and hugely imaginative books during the reading process.

“There were many lively debates on the judging panel over the final 16 books and it was a very close-run thing, but the list we have revealed today is overflowing with compelling stories, and writing that demonstrates passion, wit, and empathy.

“These are important, far-reaching novels in which brilliantly realized characters navigate the complexities of families and modern relationships, while pushing the boundaries placed around them. It’s a list that readers will devour and shows the echoes of world events on everyday lives as well as the power and brilliance of women writing today.”

Sponsors supporting the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction are Audible and Baileys.

More from Publishing Perspectives on international book and publishing awards programs is here. More from us on the Women’s Prize for Fiction is here, and more on the United Kingdom’s awards-heavy book and publishing market is here.