New novelist up for fiction prize

Gaynor Arnold works for Birmingham's Adoption and Fostering Service

A first-time novelist is among the longlisted candidates for this year's Orange Prize for Fiction.

Social worker Gaynor Arnold, 63, was nominated for Girl In A Blue Dress, which is a fictional account of the life of Charles Dickens' wife.

She is joined on the list by Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison, whose ninth novel, A Mercy, was also nominated.

The prize awards female writers. A shortlist will be announced in April.

'Quality and simple'

The winner will be announced at an award ceremony on 3 June, where the prize of £30,000 will be presented.

Broadcaster Fi Glover, who chairs the panel of judges, said: "All the books on the longlist are there because each one, in its own way, is terrific in its ambition, quality and simple ability to entertain.

"We had a fabulous, if difficult, time narrowing the list down to 20 novels - and it's a wide open field."

This year's longlist includes a record nine authors from the US, six debut novels and, for the first time, a work by a Malaysian writer.

Last year author Rose Tremain was named the winner for her tenth novel, The Road Home.

The longlist in full:

• The Household Guide to Dying - Debra Adelaide
• Girl in a Blue Dress - Gaynor Arnold
• Their Finest Hour and a Half - Lissa Evans
• Blonde Roots - Bernadine Evaristo
• Scottsboro - Ellen Feldman
• Strange Music - Laura Fish
• Love Marriage - V V Ganeshananthan
• Intuition - Allegra Goodman
• The Wilderness - Samantha Harvey
• The Invention of Everything Else - Samantha Hunt
• The Lost Dog - Michelle de Kretser
• Molly Fox's Birthday - Deirdre Madden
• A Mercy - Toni Morrison
• The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight - Gina Ochsner
• Home - Marilynne Robinson
• Evening is The Whole Day - Preeta Samarasan
• Burnt Shadows - Kamila Shamsie
• American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld
• The Flying Troutmans - Miriam Toews
• The Personal History of Rachel DuPree - Ann Weisgarber