Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia, among the judges to decide the winner for the prestigious literary award.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction aims to amplify the voices and stories of women; each year, female authors around the world submit their original full-length novel to be in the running for the coveted prize. The judging panel–chaired by 27th Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard and consisting of poet, novelist and essayist, Mona Arshi, author, presenter, poet and speaker, Salma El-Wardany, writer, podcaster, actor and comedian, Cariad Lloyd, and author, broadcaster and DJ, Annie Macmanus–will undertake the long process of reading and selecting the best of the batch.
“There have been times in my life when I had too little time for reading. Now I am delighted to have the opportunity to plunge headlong into many vibrant works of fiction by women and to work with a joyful panel of judges to highlight the books that really speak to us and shine,” says Gillard.
The winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction, sponsored by Audible and Baileys, will be announced at a summer party in Bedford Square Gardens, London on 11 June 2026; she will receive £30,000, anonymously endowed, along with a statuette known as the ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the late artist Grizel Niven.
Below is the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026.
- Flashlight by Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape, Vintage, Penguin Random House UK)
- Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate)
- Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly (Saraband)
- The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson (Cassava Republic Press)
- Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (Europa Editions UK)
- The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House UK)
The six finalists were selected from a longlist of 16 books.
- Gloria Don’t Speak by Lucy Apps (Weatherglass Books)
- Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi (4th Estate, HarperCollins Publishers UK)
- Moderation by Elaine Castillo (Atlantic Books)
- The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine (Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton, Hachette UK)
- The Others by Sheena Kalayil (Fly on the Wall Press)
- Audition by Katie Kitamura (Fern Press, Vintage, Penguin Random House UK)
- A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (Scribner, Simon & Schuster UK)
- Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Canongate)
- The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal (Tinder Press, Headline Publishing Group, Hachette UK)
- A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang (Dead Ink)
