The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction is awarded annually to women and non-binary writers for a work of fiction. The Prize is open to writers across the world but the book needs to have been published in Canada and the United States. The winning author will receive a cash prize of $150,000 and a five-night stay at Fogo Island Inn. The four finalists will be awarded $12,500 each.

The winner and four finalists will also participate in a group retreat residency in the Leighton Artist Studios, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada.

Indian-origin writer Megha Majumdar’s novel, A Guardian and the Thief, has been shortlisted for this year’s Prize. The novel is set in a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and famine. Majumdar paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.

The jury said that “[the] harrowing yet captivating novel fills us simultaneously with horror and compassion. Set in a dystopian Kolkata battered by poverty, starvation and severe climate change, it drags readers from complacency and forces them to face what can happen to our values...

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