Porter, Ellmann and Cumming make £10,000 RSL Ondaatje Prize longlist

Laura Cumming, Max Porter and Lucy Ellmann have been longlisted for this year's £10,000 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, rewarding fiction, non-fiction or poetry‚Äìwhich best evokes the spirit of a place.

The RSL is promoting the list on social media this afternoon, showcasing each writer by asking them why place is important in their book and which other title most evokes place for them.

Cumming gets the nod for On Chapel Sands (Chatto), which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize last year, while Porter is nominated for his widely acclaimed Lanny (Faber). Lucy Ellmann will be hoping to add to last year's Goldsmith's Prize win and Booker shortlisting with another award for epic Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar).

Elewhere on the longlist, there are nominations for Nightingale Point by Luan Goldie (HQ Fiction), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak (Viking), Underland by Robert Macfarlane (Hamish Hamilton) and Surge by Jay Bernard (Chatto & Windus).

When the Tree Falls by Jane Clarke (Bloodaxe Books), Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi (Bloomsbury Circus), Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham (Bantam Press) and Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie (Sort of Books) also feature.

The list is completed with Arabs by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (Yale University Press London), The Summer Isles by Philip Marsden (Granta Books), Nia by Robert Minhinnick (Seren), The Inside City by Anita Mir (Unbound Digital), A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson (Peepal Tree Press), The Bells of Old Tokyo: Travels in Japanese Time by Anna Sherman (Picador) and A Small Silence by Jumoke Verissimo (Cassava Republic).

This year's judging panel is chaired by Peter Frankopan and features poet Pascale Petit and novelist Evie Wyld.

The shortlist will be announced on 20th April and the winner on 4th May.