Sissay, Taddeo and Mendez shortlisted for Gordon Burn Prize

Lemn Sissay (pictured), Lisa Taddeo and Paul Mendez are among the shortlisted authors for this year's Gordon Burn Prize.

Sissay's book of meditations and experiences of the British care system, My Name is Why (Canongate), is shortlisted alongside Taddeo's Three Women (Bloomsbury) and Paul Mendez's coming-of-age tale Rainbow Milk (Dialogue Books).

Jenn Ashworth's genre-bending memoir Notes Made While Falling (Goldsmiths Press), Peter Pomerantsev's study of online propaganda wars This is Not Propaganda (Faber) and Deborah Orr's memoir Motherwell (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) complete the shortlist.

The prize seeks to "celebrate those who follow in the footsteps of the groundbreaking author Gordon Burn" who died in 2009. The winner will receive £5,000 and the opportunity to spend a month's retreat at Burn's cottage in the Scottish Borders.

The writers Anthony Anaxagorou and Richard T Kelly, artist Rachel Howard and journalist and broadcaster Sali Hughes are this year's judges, with the winner announced at a digital event on 15th October at Durham Book Festival.

Anaxagorou said: "Reading for the Gordon Burn Prize has been a joy. The books on the shortlist represent writing that is working to establish new parameters around the possibilities of language, theory and storytelling, through which we’re able to expand and enhance our understanding of each other and the world we occupy."