Barbara Kingsolver and Lorrie Moore compete for Orange Prize for fiction by women

American writers Barbara Kingsolver and Lorrie Moore and Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel are among six finalists for the Orange Prize for fiction by women.

Organizers today announced a shortlist that includes Kingsolver's kaleidoscope of US and Mexican history The Lacuna, Moore's wry Midwestern tale A Gate at the Stairs and Mantel's Tudor epic Wolf Hall.

The other nominees are "The Very Thought of You," by Rosie Alison; Attica Locke's Black Water Rising and The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey.

The £30,000 prize is open to any novel by a woman published in English. The winner will be announced June 9.