Burns tipped to win Women's Fiction Prize

Anna Burns is the bookies' favourite to win the £30,000 Women's Prize for Fiction, with the latest odds from William Hill putting Milkman (Faber) at 6/4. 

The winner will be announced on Wednesday 5th June and Burns is leading the way to win with her third novel. This is the second time Burns has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize. In 2018, Burns won the Man Booker Prize for Milkman, making her the first Northern Irish writer to win the award.

In second place, British author Diana Evans has been given odds by William Hill of 7/2 for her novel Ordinary People (Chatto & Windus). Evans’ debut novel, 26a (Vintage), won the Orange Award for New Writers, the Betty Trask Award and the Decibel Writer of the Year award.

At 4/1, American author Madeline Miller is third favourite for Circe (Bloomsbury). Miller previously won the Orange Prize for Fiction for her debut novel The Song of Achilles (Bloomsbury) in 2012, which made her the fourth debut novelist to win the Prize.

William Hill has British author and former Booker winner Pat Barker as fourth favourite at 6/1 for The Silence of the Girls (Hamish Hamilton). In fifth place at 8/1 is American novelist Tayari Jones for An American Marriage (Oneworld). Jones is the author of four novels and An American Marriage was chosen for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club.

Coming in at sixth place at 8/1 is Nigerian writer Oyinkan Braithwaite for her debut novel My Sister the Serial Killer (Atlantic). Oyinkan has been shortlisted for a number of awards including as a top ten spoken word artist in the Eko Poetry Slam, and for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

At a central London ceremony next week, the winner will receive an anonymously endowed cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze figurine known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven.