Hat-trick for Mantel?

Hilary Mantel is on track to add the 2013 Woman’s Prize for Fiction to her collection of awards for Bring Up the Bodies, the second in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, having already become the first author to win the Man Booker and Costa book prizes in the same year. But Mantel faces strong competition from what has been described as a 'staggeringly stron' shortlist which includes books by two previous winners of the award - Zadie Smith (NW) and Barbara Kingsolver (Flight Behaviour). Completing the shortlist for the award are books by well established authors Kate Atkinson and AM Homes, and writer of TV shows Arrested Development and Ellen - Maria Semple. The winner of the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on June 5th. The shortlist: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel; Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver; Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple; Life After Life by Kate Atkinson; May We Be Forgiven by A M Homes and NW by Zadie Smith.