RCW Authors Triumph on Rathbones Folio Prize Shortlist
Zadie Smith's Grand Union, Valeria Luiselli's Lost Children Archive, Sinéad Gleeson's Constellations, Azadeh Moaveni's Guest House for Young Widows and Fiona Benson's Vertigo & Ghost are among the eight books shortlisted for the 2020 Rathbones Folio Prize. This fantastic list makes up five out of the six female authors on the shortlist for the £30,000 prize that has never been won by a woman.
Set up in the wake of controversy around the 2011 Booker prize, which saw chair of judges Stella Rimington praising “readability” and books that “zip along”, to the dismay of parts of the literary establishment, the £30,000 prize rewards “the best work of literature of the year, regardless of form”. The winner will be announced on 23 March in a ceremony at the British Library.