The Women’s Prize Trust is a registered charity championing women writers on a global stage.Since 1996, the trust has showcased the very best writing by women through the Women’s Prize for Fiction literary awards. This year’s long list for the award features fiction from a range of genres, locations and writers.
Synopsis of âNoraâ by Nuala OâConnor
Dublin, 1904. Nora Barnacle is a twenty-year-old from Galway who left school at twelve and became a chambermaid. On June 16th, Bloomsday, Nora meets James Joyce, a brilliant dreamer who changes her life forever. Full of passion and lust, the two leave Ireland for Europe, to chase Jamesâ hopes of becoming a writer. Although James refuses to marry, much to Noraâs dismay, their union turns into a lifelong love.
Through their years together, James and Nora surround themselves with a buoyant group of friends that grows to include Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and Sylvia Beach. Nora follows James throughout Europe as he doggedly pursues publication and literary notoriety. But their life is not without challenges. As the years unfold, Nora is torn between her intense desire for James and the constant strain of living in poverty. A selfish drunk, James spends their money on nights out and a string of bad choices force them t
Shannon Sanders is a Black writer near Washington, DC, and a 2020 winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Her fiction appears in One Story, Electric Literature, Joyland, Strange Horizons, Hobart, SLICE, and elsewhere. Find her at ShannonSandersWrites.com and on Twitter at @shanderswrites.
A darkly humorous story from Chloe Wilson.
‘The girl’s father wants the boy to be served chai in stainless steel cups only. If the girl mistakenly serves him in ceramic, her father waits for the customers to leave, then smashes the cup.’
Kritika Pandey’s ‘The Great Indian Tee and Snakes’ won the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, as well as winning the regional prize for Asia.
The other regional winners were: ‘When a Woman Renounces Motherhood’ by Innocent Chizaram Ilo, representing Africa, ‘Mafootoo’ by Brian S. Heap for the Caribbean, ‘The Art of Waving’ by Andrea Macleod for the Pacific and ‘Wherever Mister Jensen Went’ by Reyah Martin for Canada and Europe.