fiction

The shortlists this year include Marlon James, Susan Choi, Carolyn Forché, Jason Reynolds and more than two dozen other authors and translators. Winners in five categories will be unveiled next month.

Colson Whitehead and Marlon James headline the longlists of names in contention for the literary prize. Altogether, 50 books across five categories stand a chance at winning in November.

Atwood made the list for her sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, and Rushdie for his reimagining of Don Quixote. Chigozie Obioma, Elif Shafak, Lucy Ellmann and Bernardine Evaristo round out the finalists.

An American Marriage won the nearly $40,000 award, once known as the Orange Prize, at a ceremony Tuesday in London. "We all loved this brilliant book," the judges said.

The novel earned Jones the $35,000 award for tackling difficult social issues in fiction. The prize's head judge says the book is "going to have a place in the literary imagination for a long time."

Five books remain in the running: Tommy Orange's There There; Tayari Jones' An American Marriage; David Chariandy's Brother; Jennifer Clement's Gun Love; and Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

The National Book Foundation winnowed the list of contenders for its literary prize to just 20 — or five finalists each in four categories. Among them are Jesmyn Ward, Min Jin Lee and Frank Bidart.

Young children have an easier time exporting what they learn from a fictional storybook to the real world when the storybook is realistic, says psychologist Tania Lombrozo.