Roisín O’Donnell has longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her debut novel, Nesting. Set in contemporary Dublin, it’s the story of a young pregnant mother who flees her abusive husband with their two young children and tries to rebuild her life while surviving in emergency accommodation.
Kevin Power’s Irish Times review called it “confident and compelling”. “Here is a novelist who has powerful news to tell, and an impressive range of narrative gifts with which to tell it.”
The 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist
Good Girl by Aria Aber
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
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Somewhere Else by Jenni Daiches
Amma by Saraid de Silva
Crooked Seeds by Karen Jennings
All Fours by Miranda July
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Nesting by Roisín O’Donnell
A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike
Birding by Rose Ruane
The Artist by Lucy Steeds
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
The sweeping themes of the books demonstrate how the prize continues to fulfil its mission to celebrate the “breadth and diversity” of women’s voices and honour work of originality, excellence and accessibility.
Kit de Waal, chair of judges, said: “It has been an absolute honour to be immersed in so many utterly exhilarating and hugely imaginative books. There were many lively debates over the final 16 books and it was a very close-run thing, but the list we have revealed today is overflowing with compelling stories, and writing that demonstrates passion, wit and empathy. These are important, far-reaching novels where brilliantly realised characters navigate the complexities of families and modern relationships, whilst pushing the boundaries placed around them. It’s a list that readers will devour and shows the echoes of world events on everyday lives as well as the power and brilliance of women writing today.”
Several of the novels span continents with sweeping stories of generations caught in the crosswinds of global events. Somewhere Else follows a refugee through two World Wars, the foundation of Israel and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Amma describes the plight of three generations of women from Singapore to Sri Lanka to New Zealand and London. The Persians employs sharp humour to tell the story of a family separated by the fall of the Shah, who struggle to regain their status in exile.
Other books explore the continuing legacy of world events in smaller, intimate settings: THe Booker Prize-shortlisted The Safekeep uncovers hidden second World War secrets inside a Dutch house in the 1960s; Crooked Seeds sees a woman return to her South African home as she attempts to make sense of her family’s actions in the Apartheid era; The Artist tells the story of a domineering artist and his niece’s subversive independence in the shadows of the first World War.
Escape is a prominent theme in the list: in Nesting, a woman flees with her children from domestic abuse only to face the uncertainty of a housing system about to collapse; Good Girl describes a young woman’s attempt to leave behind the legacy of her immigrant parents by reinventing herself within Berlin’s artistic community.
Women challenging society’s expectations around age, motherhood and sexuality feature strongly. All Fours is an artist’s quest for a new kind of freedom in her mid-forties; Birding is the story of two women untangling damaging details of their past in a seaside town; Dream Count unravels the love, relationships, ambitions and trials faced by four African women living in the US and Nigeria; Tell Me Everything weaves together the stories of interlinked characters in a small New England town. There are books that use subversive humour to relieve darker themes: Fundamentally is a sharply observed satire on aid workers in Iraq; A Little Trickerie tells the story of an audacious hoax performed by a charming vagabond on the periphery of Tudor society. The Ministry of Time blends science fiction with romance to explore the legacy of imperialism. The Dream Hotel, a speculative novel, glances into a terrifying future and imagines the consequences of our obsession with algorithms.
The 2025 longlist features nine debut novelists (Aria Aber, Kaliane Bradley, Saraid de Silva, Sanam Mahloudji, Roisín O’Donnell, Rosanna Pike, Lucy Steeds, Yael van der Wouden, Nussaibah Younis), two authors’ second novels (Miranda July, Rose Ruane) and five authors with multiple books. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche is longlisted for her fourth novel, meaning that all of her books have been celebrated by the Women’s Prize for Fiction: Half of a Yellow Sun won in 2007 and was voted the Winner of Winners in 2020, a poll which saw over 10,000 votes cast and marked the prize’s 25th anniversary. She was also shortlisted for Americanah in 2014 and Purple Hibiscus in 2004. The 2025 longlist also includes Elizabeth Strout, who was shortlisted for her debut novel Amy & Isabelle 25 years ago, in 2000, and twice subsequently longlisted (The Burgess Boys, 2014 and My Name is Lucy Barton, 2016). Laila Lalami has featured on a past longlist (Secret Son, 2010).
Three small independent presses ( Holland House Books, Scotland Street Press and Weatherglass Books) have books included for the first time. They are joined by novels from independent publishers Bloomsbury and Canongate. Hachette has four titles represented, with three from Penguin Random House, two from the 4th Estate division of HarperCollins and one from Simon & Schuster.
De Waal fellow judges are Diana Evans, inaugural winner of the Orange Prize (the Women’s Prize for debut novelists in 2006); author, journalist and mental-health campaigner Bryony Gordon; magazine editor Deborah Joseph; and musician and composer Amelia Warner.
The shortlist will be announced on April 2nd and the winner on June 12th, along with the second winner of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. The winning author will receive £30,000.
