Folio Prize announces long, long long list

The Folio Prize, founded to re-elevate the literary component of literary prizes, has announced its long list for 2014. It’s a long, long, long list: 80 books.

The list includes Lily King’s “Euphoria,” James Ellroy’s “Perfidia,” Peter Carey’s “Amnesia” and “Can’t and Won’t” by Lydia Davis.

The fiction prize comes with an award of $62,000 and is presented at a literary festival in March.

To be eligible for the Folio Prize, a book must be written in English and have been published in the U.K. in 2014. Authors can be from anywhere, however, making it broader than many other literary prizes.

The still-new Folio Prize has been given just once before, in 2014 to American George Saunders for his short story collection, “Tenth of December.”

To come up with its long list, the Folio Prize polled its academy of writers and critics for nominations. The 235 academy members include American National Book Award winner Richard Powers, Pulitzer Prize winners Michael Chabon, Junot Diaz and Paul Harding, and MacArthur “Genius” Fellows Yiyun Li and Aleksander Hemon.

The 80 titles (pdf) will be considered by a panel of five judges, who are selected from the academy. A shortlist will be announced Feb. 9.

The Folio Prize will be presented in March at the Folio Prize Fiction Festival, taking place March 20-23 in London. The festival will include the first-ever Folio Society Lecture, to be given by writer Chimamanda Ngozi Aidichie.

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