Thoughts on the Women's Prize shortlist

The arrival of spring signals one thing in the literary world- the announcement of several major book awards shortlists. The Women's Prize (previously the Bailey's), the Wellcome collection prize and the International Man Booker Prize nominations have all been announced with various degrees of fanfare, celebrating bestselling authors and shining a light on debut writers.

The Women's prize in it's new guise recently announced their 2018 list and true to form established writers sit alongside the new kids on the block in a list of titles that covers a whole host of topics and genres.

Many have made appearances in other award lists over the past few months. Costa Award Winning Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine returns to the award circuit alongside 3 Man Booker long listed novels, including the much anticipated The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. These are two novels which differ considerably. While Roy has created an epic tale, sprawling across place and introducing us to a bustling cast, Gail Honeyman's Eleanor lives in an isolated world, populated for the most part by one central character.

The novels on this list tackle the global and political (Roy, Craig's Miss Burma), to the intensely personal (Honeyman, Mozeley's Elmet). One novel on the list particularly stands out for spanning the two- Kamila Shamsie's Homefire manages to explore the Jihadism and Islamophobia, whilst presenting a raw, heartfelt examination of the relationship between three siblings.

Thematically, what is immediately striking is the focus on women and conflict: domestic abuse; violence by women; global violence and sexual power all appear within these novels. It seems fitting that at a time where the media is finally paying attention to aggressive and controlling attitudes shown towards women, that we are given a space to celebrate the female authors who explore these issues.

These novels are rife with women who fight fiercely through their suffering, shouting at the world rather than accepting the struggles they face. Imogen Hemes

Gower's sumptuous novel, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, establishes a power imbalance between the genders as a historical problem rather than a twenty-first century one. Hers is a story of a woman's search for stability through marriage, with the threat of disgrace and poverty being the only alternative. The examination of marriage appears again in Meena Kandasmys' When I Hit You, a brutal depiction of an abusive relationship, which has gained comparisons to 2017 Women's Prize nominee First Love.

As previously mentioned, the backdrop of war reappears several times across the list. Here women must navigate an environment wholly preoccupied with destruction and disaster, unable to avoid the chaos of violence.

In their preoccupation with conflict, it is inevitable that many of these novels put the female body and mind centre stage. This is perhaps evident most clearly in Jessie Greengrass' Sight, in which a pregnant woman reflects on her life and identity, while discussing the lives and works of great scientists. This is a novel that places ideas and theory at its heart, sometimes above plot yet never sacrificing character. Greengrass' protagonist dwells intently on the fluidity of identity in much the same way as Joanna Cannon's Florence, the ageing protagonist anxious to grasp her fading memories as she slips into dementia. As she searches for her friend Elsie, memory loss is an ever present danger, threatening to wipe away the life she led. As with many of these novels, women must fight for their identity, and hold onto it no matter what.

On the 23rd April this list will be whittled down to six novels. The full longlist is as follows:

H(a)ppy by Nicola Barker (William Heinemann)

The Idiot by Elif Batuman (Jonathan Cape)

Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon (The Borough Press)

Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig (Grove Press)

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan(Corsair)

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar (Harvill Secker)

Sight by Jessie Greengrass (John Murray)

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (Harper Collins)

When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife by Meena Kandasamy(Atlantic)

Elmet by Fiona Mozley (John Murray)

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton)

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt (Tinder Press)

A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert (Virago)

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury)

The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal (Viking)

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury Circus)