View source for Orange Prize for Fiction 2012

The Shortlist will be announced on 17 April with the awards ceremony on 30 May.
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'''Longlist'''

{{topten
|author=Karin Altenberg
|title=Island of Wings
|rating=Unreviewed
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= We don't yet have a review of this book but we hope to have one soon.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857382322</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Aifric Campbell
|title=On The Floor
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Geri Molloy, the central character in Aifric Campbell's ''On The Floor'', may be earning a six figure salary working at a London investment bank just prior to the outbreak of the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, but she's seriously messed up. Drinking heavily, sleeping lightly and mourning the end of a relationship, she may be a mathematical genius with a direct line to a mysterious Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager with whom she trades, but her life is increasingly being controlled by other people. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688086</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Leah Hager Cohen
|title=The Grief of Others
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= As the title suggests, the subject matter of Leah Hager Cohen's ''The Grief of Others'' is pretty grim stuff. The Ryrie family, living in the suburbs of New York, suffer the tragic loss of a baby just fifty seven hours after it is born. The book details how, one year later, the family are coping, or more accurately not coping.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686261</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Emma Donoghue
|title=The Sealed Letter
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=If you are in the mood for a deliciously scandalous Victorian page-turner, look no further than Emma Donoghue's The Sealed Letter. Set in 1864, it's based on the real life story of secrets and scandal surrounding Helen Codrington's divorce from her older husband, the rather dull Vice Admiral Codrington. There's added spice and intrigue provided by the unwitting involvement in events of Emily 'Fido' Faithfull, an early mover in the rights of women movement and that good old standard, the Victorian spinster. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447205987</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Esi Edugyan
|title=Half-Blood Blues
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Sid and his friend Chip are revisiting their youth, more than 50 years ago. They were jazz musicians, living and working in Berlin and Paris, until they had to escape Nazi occupied Paris in 1940 to return to Baltimore. Now it is 1992, and all the others they worked with are long since dead. They have just been involved in a documentary about their experiences, and are about to return to Germany (soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall) for a jazz festival in memory of the great Hiero Falk. Hieronymus Falk was a young black German musician with an exceptional musical talent, the star of their band, the Hot-Time Swingers. He was picked up by 'the Boots' as Sid refers to the Germans, in Paris in 1940, and disappeared into a concentration camp, then they heard he was released but died in 1948.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687764</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Anne Enright
|title=The Forgotten Waltz
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Anne Enright's 2007 Booker prize winning [[The Gathering by Anne Enright|The Gathering]] addressed the gloomy subjects of the three D's; death, depression and dysfunctional families. Her latest book, ''The Forgotten Waltz'', set in Dublin in 2009, sees her turning her attentions to a love affair. A more uplifting subject you might think. Well only up to a point. The affair in question you see is that of her narrator, Gina, who is already married to the generally good, if undynamic, Connor, while on the other end, the subject of the affair is the older, Seán, also married and neighbour of Gina's sister. In case your moral compass isn't stretched quite enough by this, Seán and his wife Aileen, also have a young daughter who suffers from epilepsy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539780</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Roopa Farooki
|title=The Flying Man
|rating=Unreviewed
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= We don't yet have a review of this book but we hope to have one soon.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755383389</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Jaimy Gordon
|title=Lord of Misrule
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=West Virginia, 1970.  We're at a rundown race track, of the dusty kind rundown horses and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living in, with the occasional race to interrupt the boredom.  Into things comes a young upstart hoping to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make a packet before fleeing.  His girlfriend is here too to help out, and naively eager for success and knowledge, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen it all before.  Also in the background are some small-time gangsters who are not too keen at for once not knowing who is doing what and how races are going to be run and won. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Georgina Harding
|title=Painter of Silence
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= A young, anonymous, vagrant collapses on the steps of a hospital in Romania. He doesn't speak and remains a mystery to the staff that tries to treat his obvious symptoms but can't seem to reach the silent person beneath. However, Safta, a nurse, suggests that he may be deaf and produces drawing materials. Coincidentally, the man is able to draw beautifully, but this is no coincidence to Safta. There are reasons why she can't disclose it, but she knows this man. They grew up together in pre-war Romania, a whole world away when the country had a king, beautiful cities untouched by bombing and being able to read a foreign language wasn't punishable by imprisonment in work camps... or worse. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408821125</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Jane Harris
|title=Gillespie and I
|rating=Unreviewed
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=We don't yet have a review of this book but we hope to have one soon. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238300</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Francesca Kay
|title=The Translation of the Bones
|rating=Unreviewed
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= We don't yet have a review of this book but we hope to have one soon.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297865080</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=A L Kennedy
|title=The Blue Book
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Despite not being 'quoits and gin slings and rubbers of bridge people' Elizabeth and Derek have embarked on a cruise.  Derek is probably hoping to propose, but things do not go as planned.  From the moment they encounter a stranger as they board the ship, the cruise proves to be revelationary for all concerned. 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091409</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Erin Morgenstern
|title=The Night Circus
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= 
The Night Circus moves from town to town; appearing with no warning, no announcements. The attractions seem impossible – a carousel with breathing animals, handkerchiefs that turn into birds in front of the watchful eyes of the audience, doors that appear and disappear. In the middle of it all are Celia, the daughter of a famous illusionist, and Marco, the apprentice of a mysterious magician. From a young age the lovers have been destined to compete against each other using their unusual skills to win a prize that neither of them understands; and an end that will leave only one standing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655523X</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Madeline Miller
|title=The Song of Achilles
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= 
Before I started the book, I looked out my copy of Homer's ''The Iliad'' and skim-read its one page introduction (yes, yet another book in my 'must-read' pile but it's been on it for about ahem, ten years).  Having said that, it is rather dry and scholarly which didn't really inspire me to get on with this book as I wasn't really looking for a 'heavy' read, especially on a nice summer's day.  Onwards ...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408816032</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Cynthia Ozick
|title=Foreign Bodies
|rating=Unreviewed
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= We don't yet have a review of this book but we hope to have one soon.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848877358</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Ann Patchett
|title=State of Wonder
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Anders Eckman is dead.  The news has been delivered in the form an aerogram – remember those blue paper-cum-envelope things we used to use to write to foreign pen-pals when the notion of befriending a person you'd never met in a foreign country still seemed exotic? 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408818590</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Ali Smith
|title=There but for the
|rating=Unreviewed
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= We don't yet have a review of this book but we hope to have one soon.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241143403</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Anna Stothard
|title=The Pink Hotel
|rating=Unreviewed
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= We don't yet have a review of this book but we hope to have one soon.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846881315</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Stella Tillyard
|title=Tides of War
|rating=Unreviewed
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= We don't yet have a review of this book but we hope to have one soon.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701183179</amazonuk>
}}

{{topten
|author=Amy Waldman
|title=The Submission
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The front cover of the book that I received for review is subtle (as befitting the sensitive contents) and I can see the two twin towers (as was) depicted in grey in the title word submission.  The back cover announces that this novel will be  'Published in time for the 10th anniversary of 9/11.'  No pressure then.  I open the book with a certain amount of trepidation, I have to admit and feel slightly as if I'm about to tread on (literary) eggshells.  Heavens - what if I don't like the book?
||amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019321</amazonuk>
}}