The Women's Prize for Fiction: some summer reading suggestions

Miss McLaughlin

Early in June, Kamila Shamsie was announced as the winner of the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction with her seventh novel Home Fire.

Of the shortlist, the 2018 Chair of Judges Sarah Sands, said: “This was a dazzling shortlist, it had depth and richness and variety. We were forcibly struck by the quality of the prose. Each book had its champions. We loved the originality of mermaids and courtesans, we were awed by the lyrical truth of an American road trip which serves as a commentary of the history of race in America, we discussed into the night the fine and dignified treatment of a woman’s domestic abuse, we laughed over a student’s rite of passage and we experienced the truth of losing a parent and loving a child. In the end we chose the book which we felt spoke for our times. Home Fire is about identity, conflicting loyalties, love and politics. And it sustains mastery of its themes and its form. It is a remarkable book which we passionately recommend.”

In the half term, I read one of the shortlisted works. Imogen Hermes Gower’s The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is set in Georgian London and presents a transactional world where everything from wonders and women’s affections are monetised and mythicised. Mr Hancock is a Merchant who, after finding his ship exchanged for a curiosity, is swept into the world of up-scale brothels full of high class men, showmanship and gaudy extravagance. As the novel moves into magic realism and weaves a plot around Angelica Neal – a beautiful, vain and immoral courtesan - and Jonah Hancock, the reader is led through parlours, brothels, coffee shops and dockyards and comes face-to-face with marvels. Imogen Hermes Gower’s prose shimmers (forgive me), mermaid-like and is, in fact, so subtle and engaging that, by the time we are faced with one, we too believe in the strange rolling mermaid held in a salt-water tank.

Imogen Hermes Gower studied Archaeology, Anthropology, and Art History and went on to work in museums. She gained plaudits for her short stories based on the artefacts she worked with and this, her debut novel, also based on an object, is the product of her work begun whilst completing an MA in Creative Writing.

Hers was one of six books on the short list for The Women’s Prize for Fiction, announced in April, the full short list being:

Elif Batuman, The Idiot
Imogen Hermes Gowar, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
Jessie Greengrass, Sight
Meena Kandasamy, When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire
Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing

You can read an interview with Imogen Hermes Gower here and an extract from her novel here.  

You can find out more about the prize here, and website has usefully created a page full of suggestions for your next read.

This year's judges:

Imogen Stubbs, Katy Brand, Catherine Mayer, Sarah Sands and Anita Anand.