Authors shortlisted for 2010 Orange Prize

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna are among six titles to make the shortlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction, an annual UK literary prize.

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna are among six titles to make the shortlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction, an annual UK literary prize awarded to a female English-language writer of any nationality. The finalists were announced on April 20 during a breakfast at the London Book Fair.

"This shortlist achieves the near impossible of combining literary merit with sheer readability," said chair of judges Daisy Goodwin.

"With a thriller, historical novels that reflect our world back to us, as well as a tragicomedy about post-9/11 America - there is something here to challenge, amuse and enthrall every kind of reader."

2010 Orange Prize shortlist:

The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey

The winning author, to be announced in London on June 9, will receive £30,000 (€34 000).