The Women’s Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction, have announced their 2025 longlists of sixteen finalists each, featuring four African writers!

The longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, sponsored by Audible and Baileys, includes Crooked Seeds by South African author Karen Jennings (published by Holland House Books), The Dream Hotel by Moroccan Laila Lalami (published by Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury), and Dream Count by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (published by 4th Estate, HarperCollins).

With Dream Count, every one of Adichie’s novels has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She won the prize in 2007 for Half of Yellow Sun, which went on to be named the ‘Best of the Best’ of the winners of the second decade of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, as chosen by the chairs of judges of the past ten years. This is also Laila Lalami’s second time on the longlist. Her second novel Secret Son was longlisted for the prize in 2010.

The chair of judges, Kit de Waal, praises the diversity of themes and genres represented on the list:

These are important, far-reaching novels where brilliantly realised characters navigate the complexities of families and modern relationships, whilst pushing the boundaries placed around them. It’s a list that readers will devour and shows the echoes of world events on everyday lives as well as the power and brilliance of women writing today.

This is only the second year of the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction, sponsored by Find My Trust, and Sierra Leonean artist Neneh Cherry’s memoir A Thousand Threads (published by Scribner) has made the longlist. Kavita Puri, the chair of judges, reflects on the power of the titles on the nonfiction longlist:

Amongst this stellar list, there are also reads that expertly steer us through the most pressing issues of our time, show the resilience of the human spirit, alongside others that elucidate the dangers of unchecked power, the consequence of oppression and the need for action and defiance.

The judges will now narrow down the titles to shortlists of six, which will be revealed on April 2, 2025. The winners will be announced on June 12, 2025, at the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer party in central London. The winning author will receive a £30,000 cheque from an anonymous donation as well as a limited-edition bronze statuette known as the Bessie, created and donated by artist Grizel Niven.

This year marks the Women’s Prize’s 30th year of being the “greatest celebration of female creativity in the world.” The Women’s Prize Trust is a registered charity dedicated to championing the brilliance of women writers around the world. The organization works to create equitable opportunities for women in the literary world and beyond.

Congratulations to all the longlisted authors!