Thien shortlisted for fiction prize

Vancouver-born author up for international Women’s Prize for Fiction

LONDON — Vancouver-born Madeleine Thien’s Chinese-Canadian journey Do Not Say We Have Nothing is among the novels on the short list for the international Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Set in China before, during and after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Thien’s novel was among the most acclaimed Canadian titles of 2016.

The Montreal-based writer was awarded last year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction, and landed on the short list for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

C.E. Morgan’s multigenerational Kentucky epic The Sport of Kings and Naomi Alderman’s gender role-reversal thriller The Power were also on the short list announced Monday.

Other contenders for the £30,000 ($50,000 Cdn.) prize are Nigerian writer Ayobami Adebayo’s tale of love and loss in 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me; British author Linda Grant’s The Dark Circle, set in a tuberculosis sanatorium after the Second World War; and British novelist Gwendoline Riley’s portrait of a toxic marriage, First Love.

Founded in 1996, the prestigious prize is open to female English-language writers from around the world.

The annual award is officially named the Baileys Women’s Prize after its creamliqueur sponsor. The winner will be announced on June 7.