Irish authors Anne Enright and Lisa McInerney are among the six writers on the shortlist for this year's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction which comes with a prize fund of €38,700 for the winner.
Enright has been shortlisted for The Green Road with McInerney nominated for The Glorious Heresies. They are joined on the shortlist by Cynthia Bond (Ruby), Elizabeth McKenzie (The Portable Veblen), Hannah Rothschild (The Improbability of Love) and Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life).
The shortlisted Irish books
"After a long and often passionate debate we are proud to present our 2016 shortlist," said Chair of Judges Margaret Mountford. "Our choices reflect a really diverse mix of brilliant writing from new and established authors around the world and we hope that everyone will find much to enjoy in them."
The judges with the shortlisted books
Anne Enright's The Green Road traces 25 years in the life of an Irish family, beginning in 1980. In the book, Rosaleen has taken to the bed because her son Dan has declared his intention to become a priest.
The story takes a leap to 2005, at which point dramatic changes have occurred in the family. The Green Road won the Eason Irish Novel of the Year award at the 2015 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards and featured on the longlist for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.
Anne Enright
Enright won the Man Booker in 2007 for her previous novel, The Gathering, another Irish family saga detailing much conflict and complication.
Lisa McInerney's The Glorious Heresies is her debut novel. It tracks the fallout from an accidental killing in Cork, with five characters and their idiosyncratic points of view, conjured in earthy, vivid prose. The Galway author writes a blog entitled the Arse End of Ireland.
Lisa McInerney
In an interview with British newspaper The Guardian, McInerney described making the Baileys shortlist as "an amazing leg up" and paid tribute to the influence of award-winning author Kevin Barry on her career as an author.
"I'd only written one short story before this - it was commissioned by Kevin Barry, who had stumbled across my blog and asked for a short story," she said. "I hadn't written one before but you don't say no to Kevin Barry so I threw it together and he liked it."
The Glorious Heresies followed to great acclaim, and now the Baileys shortlist.
The winner of the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction will be announced on Monday June 8.
