Women's Prize for Fiction receives 'major sponsorship interest'

There has been a substantial amount of interest from potential sponsors keen to back the Women's Prize for Fiction after Orange ended its 17-year association with the award, honorary director Kate Mosse has revealed.

Mosse, who co-founded what was then the Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, said she has been 'delighted and thrilled' by the level of interest in the award, which is presented each year to the best novel written in the English language by a female author.

In May, Orange announced it was ending its sponsorship of the prize to focus more on the film industry, which resulted in Mosse issuing an open letter to potential new sponsors.

Since then, 18 prospective backers have come forward, with many laying out ambitious plans for expanding the award's scope as it enters a new era.

'It's the first time that we've taken stock in 18 years. It's meant that we've been able to think about what we want to achieve in the future,' Mosse explained.

'Do we really feel that we can roll this out all over the world? Yes, we probably can.'

The author added that the Women's Prize for Fiction board is confident of sticking to the timetable established in May, to have a new sponsor in place by September.

This year's GBP 30,000 prize was won by US author Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles, her story of same-sex romance in Ancient Greece.