Next Tuesday the 8th, the 2022 Women’s Prize longlist will be announced.
First I have a list of 16 novels I want to be longlisted, because I’ve read and loved them (or at least thought they were interesting), or am currently reading and enjoying them, or plan to read them soon, or am desperate to get hold of them.
Wishlist
Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield (my review)
Ghosted by Jenn Ashworth (my review)
These Days by Lucy Caldwell
Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson – currently reading
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González – currently reading
Burntcoat by Sarah Hall (my review)
Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny (my review)
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti
My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (my review)
Devotion by Hannah Kent – currently reading
Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith – currently reading
When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain (my review)
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka – review coming to Shiny New Books on Thursday
Brood by Jackie Polzin (my review)
The Performance by Claire Thomas (my review)
Then I have a list of 16 novels I think will be longlisted mostly because of the buzz around them, or they’re the kind of thing the Prize always recognizes (like danged GREEK MYTHS), or they’re authors who have been nominated before – previous shortlistees get a free pass when it comes to publisher submissions, you see – or they’re books I might read but haven’t gotten to yet.
Predictions
Love Marriage by Monica Ali
When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Second Place by Rachel Cusk (my review)
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Free Love by Tessa Hadley
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (my review)
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
The Fell by Sarah Moss (my review)
My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney (my review)
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman
Still Life by Sarah Winman
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara – currently reading
*A wildcard entry that could fit on either list: Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason (my review).*
Okay, no more indecision and laziness. Time to combine these two into a master list that reflects my taste but also what the judges of this prize generally seem to be looking for. It’s been a year of BIG books – seven of these are over 400 pages; three of them over 600 pages even – and a lot of historical fiction, but also some super-contemporary stuff. Seven BIPOC authors as well, which would be an improvement over last year’s five and closer to the eight from two years prior. A caveat: I haven’t given thought to publisher quotas here.
MY WOMEN’S PRIZE FORECAST
Love Marriage by Monica Ali
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González
Matrix by Lauren Groff
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Devotion by Hannah Kent
Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith
The Fell by Sarah Moss
My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
What do you think?
See also Laura’s, Naty’s, and Rachel’s predictions (my final list overlaps with theirs on 10, 5 and 8 titles, respectively) and Susan’s wishes.
Just to further overwhelm you, here are the other 62 eligible 2021–22 novels that were on my radar but didn’t make the cut:
In Every Mirror She’s Black by Lola Akinmade Åkerström
Violeta by Isabel Allende
The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews
Somebody Loves You by Mona Arshi
The Stars Are Not Yet Bells by Hannah Lillith Assadi
The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore
Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau
Defenestrate by Renee Branum
Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie
Assembly by Natasha Brown
We Were Young by Niamh Campbell
The Raptures by Jan Carson
A Very Nice Girl by Imogen Crimp
Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser
Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline
Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
Love & Saffron by Kim Fay
Mrs March by Virginia Feito
Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
Tides by Sara Freeman
I Couldn’t Love You More by Esther Freud
Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Listening Still by Anne Griffin
The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett
Mrs England by Stacey Halls
Three Rooms by Jo Hamya
The Giant Dark by Sarvat Hasin
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
Violets by Alex Hyde
Fault Lines by Emily Itami
Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
Paul by Daisy Lafarge
Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal
The Truth About Her by Jacqueline Maley
Wahala by Nikki May
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
The Anthill by Julianne Pachico
The Vixen by Francine Prose
The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Cut Out by Michèle Roberts
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
Secrets of Happiness by Joan Silber
Cold Sun by Anita Sivakumaran
Hear No Evil by Sarah Smith
Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
Lily by Rose Tremain
French Braid by Anne Tyler
We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida
I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Great lists, Rebecca! I don’t know how I’ve followed the Women’s Prize for this long and didn’t realise that there was a free pass for previous shortlistees. I knew previously LL/SL authors were more likely to turn up, but assumed this was just an expression of the Prize’s preferences, not built into its structure. I think this is a real shame – must make the bias towards larger/older publishers even worse as well.
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So I think that rule would apply to the Kent, Riley and Yanagihara here (Ali, Moss, Rooney and Shafak were only longlisted). It means the publisher can submit those in addition to their usual quota. If I was really devoted, I would have checked on the publisher for each one of these and made sure none were over-represented! You’re right, it does stack the deck in favour of larger publishers, who can also afford the publicity costs of later stages.
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Would dearly love Sorrow & Bliss to be listed, and equally The Performance, which I thought was really clever. And Devotion – beautifully written. Basically, I’d be thrilled if any Aus writer made the list!
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Yes, let’s hope we see an Australian author! I think Devotion is most likely, but I’d be pleased by one of the other two.
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Hurrah for Sorrow and Bliss!
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[…] Bookish Beck’s Women’s Prize 2022: Longlist Wishes vs. Predictions […]
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Great post!! I totally agree this year’s list will be most histfic heavy. It would be very cool if Brood made the list, though!
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So hard to know what the judges are looking for, especially when the panel changes every year…
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That’s true! I guess they usually don’t go for a lot of histfic, but one never really knows.
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I’d love to see My Phantoms and These Days make the list. Mrs March would be my favourite, as I thought it was an incredible debut. I liked Build Your House Around My Body a lot, look forward to hear what you think,
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I didn’t make it far with Mrs March last year, but might try it another time. I’m about 1/3 through Build Your House Around My Body and really enjoying it.
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Call me out for being a poor feminist, but this is a prize I don’t really follow. I would have liked to see Mrs March on one of your two lists, and while I enjoyed Ariadne and like those ‘danged Greeks’ it wasn’t strong enough, whereas the Arthurian tinged Sistersong by Lucy Holland was super.
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It’s funny, I never used to be very invested in this prize, but just in the last few years I’ve gotten more so. I won’t ever bother reading a full longlist or shortlist, just the ones that interest me. Sistersong is a new title for me!
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I’m posting my wishlist tomorrow – no predictions from me. We overlap on more than I’d expected, both in your wishes and predictions. Fingers crossed!
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Looking forward to it! You always pick out a great set.
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Ooh you’re right, we do have a lot in common! I love the look of your official prediction list, I’d be happy with that combination of books I think. (Actually, maybe not the Yanagihara. I do want to read it. Just, only after the discourse has died down.)
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I’m crawling my way through To Paradise. I’m 2/3 through just Part One and it’s top writing but I’m not sure the plot payoff will be there, especially considering she’s going to zoom forward to two more time periods. My thinking is that, like with The Mirror and the Light, the judges will feel like they have to acknowledge it by longlisting it, but I definitely don’t expect it to advance.
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That was my exact reasoning with the Rooney!
I don’t know why, I just have a strong feeling To Paradise won’t be there—nothing I’ve heard about it screams WP to me, and they always strike me as so controversy-averse that I can just see them wanting to sidestep it altogether rather than invite more discourse?! (Fully acknowledging though that you ALWAYS get more predictions correct than I do, and I am expecting to be wrong about this one. But I am standing my ground until it happens!)
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I only correctly predicted 6 of the longlist last year! (And 4 of 6 on the shortlist the year before.)
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I’d love Black Cake and Brown Girls to make it on, no Greek myths please and I fear The Love Songs will make it and I will have to finish it. I hated the Monica Ali but …
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Ha ha, I’m afraid Greek myths are a shoo-in for the shortlist of this prize! I think we will also see at least a couple of extremely long books make it through, but one never has to feel pressured to read anything…
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Wow, so many books! You do such a good job with these posts that even someone like me who hasn’t read ANY of them is mesmerized by all the pretty books and what you have to say about them. I laughed so hard about “danged Greek Myths”. Lol
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I only ever tried one Greek myth update, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, and couldn’t finish it. For some reason the subject matter is a real turnoff for me.
One Canadian author on my wishlist! And a couple more in the rest of my post. We shall see what Tuesday brings!
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A few I am surprised to see no mention of:
The Fortune Men – Nadifa Mohamed
The Sentence – Louise Erdrich
Learwife – JR Thorp
Tenderness – Alison MacLeod
How Beautiful We Were – Imbolo Mbue
We Are All Birds of Uganda – Hafsa Zayyan
Intimacies – Katie Kitamura
The School for Good Mothers – Jessamine Chan
It has been a stellar year for women’s writing
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Now that you mention them, of course I should have thought of those! I felt with ~100 titles I’d gotten to most possibilities, but there will always be some missed out. I’ve not read any of those. Any you’d recommend in particular?
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I haven’t read all of them but I would recommend Intimacies the most I think from those I have read above. Prose so precise it is almost surgical. The Fortune Men was a Booker shortlisted pick but I was a little bit disappointed with it.
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I’ve read Kitamura’s previous novel. I wasn’t drawn to The Fortune Men from that shortlist.
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Good call with the Erdrich!
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As has been the trend for me, in recent years, I feel quite far behind with the idea of this announcement in March. And as I’m focussing on backlist this year, it seems unlikely that I’ll get far with any notions of longing towards the possibilities and desires you’ve itemized. Looking forward to seeing the longlist though, and to laughing at your unrealised guesses (as mine are always just as far off).
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[…] my wishes and predictions, 1 and 2 were correct, so I got 3 right overall, with my wildcard choice being the only nominee […]
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[…] so I was delighted to hear that she had written a debut novel, and it was one of my few correct predictions for the Women’s Prize nominees. The main action takes place between when Winnie – half white […]
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[…] now a month out from the longlist, which will be announced on International Women’s Day. Like last year, I’ve separated my predictions from a wish list; two titles overlap. Here’s a reminder of the […]
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