This week is the week of the Women’s Prize Virtual Shortlist Festival. For the (almost invisible) amount of £12 you’ll have access to three evenings of readings by the shortlisted writers: there are some wonderful works to hear extracts from on Monday 14th, Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th.
I have loved Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: she hypnotised me into another world entirely. And both Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half and Cherie Jones’s How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House took me into worlds that showed me how Black lives have been lived in hostile worlds.
The winning novel will be announced on Wednesday 7 July. And I would love any of these three attitude-altering, knowledge-and-mind-expanding truly great stories to win. With a possible preference for the last one in my list of three. But it’s a difficult call.
