'New Zadie Smith' tipped for award

A British writer hailed as the new Zadie Smith has been shortlisted for the inaugural Orange Award for New Writers.

Diana Evans was nominated for the £10,000 prize for her debut novel 26a.

The award, a spin-off from the women-only Orange Prize for Fiction, is open to female first-time authors.

Ms Evans, 33, is a graduate of the University of East Anglia's creative writing course.

Her semi-autobiographical novel follows identical twins Georgia and Bessi as they grow up in Neasden in the Eighties with a white father and homesick Nigerian mother.

The other two books on the shortlist are Lucky Girls by Nell Freudenberger and How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. Both authors are American, although Rosoff now lives in London.

How I Live Now has already been nominated for two other literary prizes - the Whitbread Children's Prize and the recent British Book Awards. Lucky Girls is a collection of five short stories set in India and South-East Asia.

Chair of the judges Kamila Shamsiez said: "It really is a source of much cheer to see how vast the scope of new writing by women is, as exemplified by the three books on the shortlist.

"What binds these books together is potential, ambition and the sheer class of writing."

The winner will be announced at the Orange Prize for Fiction ceremony in London on 7 June. She will receive a £10,000 bursary funded by Arts Council England.