Miranda July and Rachel Kushner Among Carol Shields 2025 Prize Longlist Nominees — See the Full List! (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Carol Shields 2025 Prize Longlist Nominees.Photo:Courtesy of Carol Shields Prize for Fiction

Courtesy of Carol Shields Prize for Fiction

This year’sCarol Shields Prize for Fictionlonglist has arrived!

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which has been honoring the works of women and non-binary writers since 2023, has announced its 2025 longlist of author nominees. Chosen from a jury of writers, 15 authors were selected for the honor, which includes a $150,000 prize.

“It has been a joy and an honor to select these outstanding books for the Carol Shields Prize longlist," said Diana Abu-Jaber, on behalf of the prize’s jury. “Each of these works is extraordinary and original, showing us the path forward, out of suppression, into humanity and liberation.”

Riverhead Books

Five finalists will be announced April 3, and four will each receive $12,500. A winner will be announced May 1 at a ceremony in Chicago and will receive the grand prize of $150,000.

V Efua Prince’sKin: Practically True Storiescelebrates Black womanhood, resistance and perseverance — as it intersects with American history — especially through women’s labor.

Anne Fleming’sCuriositiesspans five perspectives, “each a different thread in the same strange tale,” to capture indescribable bonds between friends and lovers, in an era that too often relies on witchcraft as an explanation.

Dominique Fortier’sPale Shadowsfollows three formidable women as they embrace Emily Dickinson’s writing to persist through grief and troubles, in a “story of the birth of a book years after the death of its author.”

Scribner

InObligations to the Wounded, Mubanga Kalimamukwento crafts a vivid image of the experience of being a Zambian woman, living in the motherland or abroad, and how “shared burdens, culture and homeland inextricably link them together in struggle and triumph,” rooted in Zambian literary tradition.

Oonya Kempadoo’sNanikifollows two African and Taino-descended advanced sea beings as they embark on a journey to find a deeper purpose in the face of a “disastrous monstrosity.”

Hogarth

Sarah Manguso’sLiarschronicles a woman’s identity shift from artist to wife following her marriage to another creative, whose career thrives when hers shrinks. But as the marriage burns, the woman rises from the ashes.

Erica McKeen’sCicada Summeris set amidst the upheaval of 2020. As cicadas chirp around three people quarantined together, a woman discovers her late mother’s final short story collection — which seeps in the enclosed space all three people must share.

Aube Rey Lescure’sRiver East, River Westfollows a Chinese American teenager’s ever-developing American Dream, cut against the backstory of her mother’s new lover in “a stunning reversal of the east-to-west immigrant narrative” within the context of China’s political and economic history.

Sharon Wahl’sEverything Flirts: Philosophical Romances"hijacks classic works of philosophy and turns their focus to love," applying age-old logic to romance in multiple attempts to demystify the question of love.

source: people.com