Marcia Hutchinson, the Cassava Republic Press author whose debut novel The Mercy Step made history on this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, will appear in conversation with fellow shortlisted author Rozie Kelly at The Carlton Club in Manchester, hosted by Carlton Book Club. The event brings together two of the six authors shortlisted for the 2026 prize for short readings from their novels, followed by audience questions, with Chorlton Bookshop on hand selling copies for signing on the night.

We’ve been following The Mercy Step‘s run this year with particular pride, given Cassava Republic’s roots as a Nigerian-founded, African-owned independent press. Founded in Abuja in 2006 by Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, Cassava Republic made history this spring when Hutchinson’s novel became the first title from a Black-owned, African independent publisher to reach the Women’s Prize shortlist in the award’s thirty-year history — landing the milestone in the same year the press turned twenty. Set in 1960s Bradford, The Mercy Step follows Mercy, the youngest child of a Windrush-generation Jamaican family, navigating a household shaped by her father’s violence and her mother’s fierce faith. Hutchinson, a British-Jamaican lawyer, community activist, and MBE recipient, published the novel as her literary debut at sixty, after more than fifty publishers passed on the manuscript before Cassava Republic took it on.

Sharing the stage is Rozie Kelly, the West Yorkshire-based novelist behind Kingfisher, her Arvon Foundation-linked debut about the entanglement between a creative writing academic and the poet colleague who upends his life. Kingfisher won the 2024 NorthBound Book Award before landing on this year’s Women’s Prize longlist and, ultimately, the shortlist alongside The Mercy Step.

For anyone in Manchester who wants to see two of this year’s most talked-about shortlisted authors in an intimate setting, and to show up for an African-owned press making prize history, tickets for the evening are available here.