Orange longlist includes two Africans

A Nigerian and a South African are included in the 2004 longlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction, a UK-based award for writing by women.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ice Road by Gillian Slovo are among the 20 books announced for the longlist at the London Book Fair on March 15 2004. The shortlist for the prize will be announced on April 27 and the winner on June 8.

Adichie grew up in Nigeria. She has previously been shortlisted for the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing and had her selected by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and the BBC Short Story Awards.

Purple Hibiscus tells the story of a fifteen-year-old girl whose closeted life in Nigeria is suddenly thrown wide open when Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, and the girl’s father, involved in mysterious ways with the unfolding political crisis, sends Kambili and her brother away to their aunt’s.

Gillian Slovo is the author of a family memoir, Every Secret Thing, and nine novels, the most recent of which is Red Dust. Born in South Africa, she and her family were exiled to Britain in 1964. She has lived in London ever since.

Ice Road tell the story of Irina Davydovna, survivor of the ice ship Chelyuskin, which sank in the Arctic circle, who returns to her beloved home city of Leningrad. She thinks her troubles are over. But this is Leningrad in 1933. As Stalin begins to turn against the city, Irina finds herself caught up in forces beyond anyone's control.