This year's Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist - now in its 29th year - features three established authors up against three less well-known ones. A debut by Aube Rey Lescure sits alongside second novels from V. V. Ganeshananthan and Isabella Hammad, as well as books by Anne Enright, Kate Grenville and Claire Kilroy.

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Monica Ali, Chair of Judges said: "This year’s shortlist features six brilliant, thought-provoking and spellbinding novels that between them capture an enormous breadth of the human experience. Readers will be captivated by the characters, the luminous writing and the exquisite storytelling. Each book is gloriously compelling and inventive and lingers in the heart and mind long after the final page."

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The Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist 2024

*The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright

*Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan

*Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

*Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

*Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

*River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure

This year’s shortlist has been selected by Chair of the Judges, author Monica Ali, who is joined on the judging panel by author Ayọbámi Adébáyọ; author and illustrator Laura Dockrill; actor Indira Varma; and presenter and author Anna Whitehouse.

"What a fantastic shortlist of books the judges have come up with this year," says GH Books Editor Joanne Finney. "There's really something for everyone here, from VV Ganeshananthan's epic family drama, set against the shocking violence of the Sri Lankan civil war, to Claire Kilroy's heart puncher of a read about the realities of early motherhood. I particularly loved The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright and its exploration of generational trauma, told in beautifully prose."

Set up in 1996 to celebrate and promote international fiction by women to the widest range of readers possible, the Women’s Prize for Fiction is awarded for the best novel of the year written by a woman. Any woman writing in English – whatever her nationality, country of residence, age or subject matter – is eligible.

The winner of the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction will be awarded on Wednesday 13 June.