Transgender author Torrey Peters makes history by being named on Women’s Prize For Fiction longlist
Transgender author Torrey Peters makes history by being named on Women’s Prize For Fiction longlist for her novel Detransition, Baby
- Torrey Peters included in the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021
- Novel follows trans women as they navigate forming an unconventional family
- Organisers of the Women’s Prize extended the award to ‘all women’ in October
The Women’s Prize for Fiction has made history by including a trans woman in its 2021 longlist.
Torrey Peters has been listed for her debut novel Detransition, Baby, months after organisers faced fierce criticism for announcing entries will be accepted from anyone ‘legally defined’ as a woman.
Detransition, Baby follows trans women Reese and Amy as they attempt to navigate forming an unconventional family when Amy de-transitions to become Ames and fathers a child from an affair with his boss Katrina.
In October, organisers of the prestigious award were accused of putting women’s rights last as they extended the award to ‘all women’.
Torrey Peters has been listed for her debut novel Detransition, Baby, months after organisers faced fierce criticism for announcing entries will be accepted from anyone ‘legally defined’ as a woman
Detransition, Baby (seen with Peters) follows trans women Reese and Amy as they attempt to navigate forming an unconventional family when Amy de-transitions to become Ames and fathers a child from an affair with his boss Katrina
Joanna Prior, chairman of the award’s board, said: ‘In our terms and conditions, the word “woman” equates to a cis woman, a transgender woman or anyone who is legally defined as a woman or of the female sex.’
A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth, while cis or cisgender is a term for those whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth.
The Women’s Prize was established in response to the Booker failing to shortlist a single female writer in 1991.
Miss Peters’ novel, which has been picked up for a TV adaptation, is one of six debuts on this year’s longlist including Irish novelist Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times, Booker Prize nominated American Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar and Barbadian author Cherie Jones’ How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House.
Pictured: Detransition, Baby
Comedian Dawn French’s fourth novel Because of You is listed alongside previous winner, Ali Smith, who has also been shortlisted twice before.
Other names include Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, Clare Chambers’ Small Pleasures, Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, Amanda Craig’s The Golden Rule, Claire Fuller’s Unsettled Ground, Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom Raven Leilani’s Luster, Patricia Lockwood’s No One is Talking About This, Annabel Lyon’s Consent and Kathleen McMahon’s Nothing But Blue Sky.
Chair of judges and Booker Prize winning novelist Bernardine Evaristo said she is ‘confident that we have chosen sixteen standout novels that represent a truly wide and varied range of fiction by women that reflects multiple perspectives, narrative styles and preoccupations’.
Maggie O’Farrell claimed the prize last year for her eighth novel Hamnet, which was inspired by the life and death of Shakespeare’s only son, who died aged 11.
Winners receive £30,000 and a bronze sculpture called the Bessie.
