In advance of the Orange Prize winner announcement this evening, Foyles bookshop has supplied quotes about the prize and each of the shortlisted titles

Jonathan Ruppin from Foyles bookshops comments on the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011 winner announcement. 

Overall comment on the prize:

“The Orange Prize continues to reveal the exciting diversity of fiction available in good bookshops, going against the widespread misconception that publishers are deeply conservative in their output, only backing the proven and the familiar.  The shortlist was one of the strongest for years and the judges' debate to narrow their choices must have been fascinating. Even opponents of this women-only prize must acknowledge that it proves its worth on the quality of its choices alone.”

Individual comments on each of the shortlisted titles :

ROOM - EMMA DONOGHUE

“The hype is, for once, thoroughly justified, as thousands of readers have already discovered. This is a real literary page-turner, gripping in its depiction on enforced domestic horror seen through innocent eyes.”

THE MEMORY OF LOVE - AMINATTA FORNA

“It's a profoundly affecting novel that will leave the reader quietly stunned. It combines a portrait of a country tearing itself apart with a reminder that love can transcend and the most painful of circumstances. It's a book to place alongside Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah or The Redundancy of Courage by Timothy Mo.”

GRACE WILLIAMS SAYS IT LOUD - EMMA HENDERSON

“It's a book that has slowly developed a devoted following, giving voice to a disenfranchised minority, a group whose human rights and rights to happiness often seem lost amidst the clamour from more vocal interests. It's unflinching yet compassionate, a book that reminds us how much further our society has still to develop.”

GREAT HOUSE - NICOLE KRAUSS

“Vast and ingenious in scope yet deeply intimate in its characterisations, this is a first-rate example of why some stories can only really be told in novel form. The linking motif of the desk might have been a gimmick in lesser hands, but Krauss' writing elevates these interwoven tales of despair to ethereal beauty.”

THE TIGER'S WIFE - TEA OBREHT

“It's very rare to encounter a debut of such accomplishment. The commercial potential of this is huge - it could match the enduring popularity of a book like Yann Martel's Life of Pi. It's a fable, a thriller, a war story and much more all combined into one extraordinary journey.”

ANNABEL - KATHLEEN WINTER

“Very much the dark horse on the shortlist, but perhaps the most elegantly written, this is quite unique. She manages to make a deeply individual story resonate with universality: Middlesex meets The Tenderness of Wolves.”