The Orange Prize

I'm reading this wonderful book by Andrea Levy called "Small Island." One of the reasons I chose it was because it had won two literary awards, The Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year. I had heard of the Whitbread but hadn't recalled hearing of "The Orange Prize," so I looked it up on the net. Turns out it is only ten years old, and I was excited to learn that it is a prize given only to women by what looks like a British-based female-owned or dominated relatively new communications company that is simply called "Orange." Apparently it is also "the UK's largest annual literary award for a single novel." I noticed that one of the judges for this year's competition was Joanne Harris, the author of "Chocolat" and "Five Quarters of the Orange," so I figured this year's winner is probably also a sure bet. But both the short and long lists of finalists also look exciting. You can see the short list here:

http://www.orangeprize.co.uk/2005prize/shortlist/index.html

The winner is "We Need to Talk about Kevin."

Here is a review of "Small Island."

http://www.orangeprize.co.uk/2004prize/winner/review.html