Place your bets — Women’s Prize 2018
Mission complete. In the past 6 days we have reviewed the 6 books on the Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist. In case you need reminding, these are the books nominated:
- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
- When I Hit You: Or, a Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife by Meena Kandasamy
- Sight by Jessie Greengrass
- Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
- The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
- The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Ellie read Sight, Home Fire, and The Idiot:
It’s easy to overthink the whole process, and end up feeling like no book is ‘important’ or ‘special’ enough to win the prize over the others. Before reading my half of the shortlist (Sight, Home Fire and The Idiot), I was probably most intrigued by The Idiot. Now, having read it, I feel like it was relatable, but didn’t leave me feeling like it was profound. As I said in my review, I think it might have had that kind of effect on me once, but we can’t live our lives (or write our predictions) based on might have beens. Similarly, I left Sight feeling like it had potential. But this potential was buried underneath really, really, really long sentences. So, this leaves Home Fire as my favourite — not by default, but because I liked it for what it actually was, not what it could’ve been.
Lydia read The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, When I Hit You and Sing, Unburied, Sing:
I’ve really enjoyed reading the shortlist this year, and I feel like I enjoyed each book to a certain extent. This — after only getting through a few of last year’s shortlist and really disliking 2 out of the 4 — was a welcome relief. I went into this having already read, and loved, Sing, Unburied, Sing, so that was a tough one to overcome as my favourite. However, When I Hit You absolutely was my favourite out of the 3 I read; the other two did not come near the effect Kandasamy’s writing had on me, and I want to force this beautiful little thing into the hands of everyone I know.
But, those were just our personal favourites, and that doesn’t make them winners. So what do we think will actually win the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018?
The criteria set by the Women’s Prize are ‘accessibility, originality and excellence in writing by women’, so in light of these we have been trying to predict the winner. Another factor that isn’t explicitly cited as a criterion is a book’s current relevance; last year’s winner The Power was very topical in its discussion of gender power dynamics, so it’s not unlikely that this year’s winner might also have some kind of political undertone. The one that comes closest to doing this is probably Home Fire, yet it being a retelling of Antigone may question its ‘originality’ (not that a retelling is unoriginal by default).Despite retelling a well known narrative, however, Shamsie manages to blend myth with reality, political with personal. Home Fire discussed the undeniably contentious topic of Islamic radicalisation, encouraging the reader to think while retaining relatable and likeable characters.
So Home Fire definitely has the potential to be a winner. Yet, when discussing our favourites from the shortlist, we agreed that although Home Fire is brilliant in all the ways discussed above, When I Hit You may take the top spot overall. This book also ticks the box for being ‘relevant’ in its discussion of domestic violence, but it feels like, more than Home Fire, it embodies the criteria of ‘accessibility, originality and excellence in writing by women’.
So that’s it! Our official prediction for the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018 is When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy. We’ve had so much fun reading and reviewing the shortlist, and it’s always fun to try and guess the winner. So no matter what wins, I think we’ll be happy! Stay tuned to the Women’s Prize twitter account for the live stream of the winner announcement this evening, at around 6:45pm.
