Both of the Jewish authors long-listed for the Baileys prize have been winners before, back when Orange was the main sponsor.
Linda Grant's A Dark Circle is set in 1950, two years into the NHS, revolving around a TB sanatorium in the Kent countryside, where the East End Lynsky twins are the only Jews. She won the 2000 Orange prize for When I Lived in Modern Times.
Naomi Alderman's The Power is the only speculative fiction on the list. The Power imagines a world where women around the world develop a supernatural electrical power, sparking a new era of female dominance over men.
Alderman - who won the Orange Prize for new writing in 2006 - is currently having her novel Disobedience being made into a movie. This sparked its own controversy when kosher shoppers in Golders Green complained about film crews disrupting their Shabbat preparations.
Grant and Alderman on Bailey's longlist
Two Jewish authors are on the 16-strong longlist for the 2017 Baileys women’s prize for fiction
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