2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction: Read the opening lines of the six shortlisted novels

Half of 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, announced on 26 April, is made up of first-time novelists as well as previous Women’s Prize-winning and shortlisted authors. There are four British, one American, and one Irish author in the running to win the £30,000 prize, whose winner will be declared on June 14.

This year’s jury is chaired by Louise Minchin, and the judging panel includes novelist Rachel Joyce, journalist Bella Mackie, writer Irenosen Okojie, and the UK member of parliament Tulip Siddiq. Minchin said that the shortlist is an “exquisite set of ambitious, diverse, thoughtful, hard-hitting and emotionally engaging novels. A glittering showcase of the power of women’s writing.”

Here are the opening lines of the shortlisted books:

Black Butterflies, Priscilla Morris

It sometimes seems to Zora that, with all the teaching and curating and meetings and paperwork and caring and cooking and cleaning and errands, she is floundering at the midpoint of her life. There’s no time left over for the core of her. Perhaps, at fifty- five, she’s beyond the midpoint now, but she’d always imagined that these years – her child grown and gone, herself not yet old – would be her most spacious and productive. She’d pictured herself spending long, blissful days in...

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