Orange prize 2009: The shortlist

Ellen Feldman's Scottsboro is the story of the infamous Scottsboro case, in which nine young black men are arrested in 1931 Alabama for the supposed rape of two white girls, told from the perspective of a young journalist battling to save the youths from the electric chair Photograph: PR

Samantha Harvey's debut The Wilderness is the story of a man in his early 60s, struggling to retain his memories and his identity as Alzheimer's starts to take hold Photograph: PR

Samantha Hunt's The Invention of Everything Else details the friendship which emerged between brilliant Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla and a young woman who meets him at the end of his life Photograph: PR

Irish writer Deirdre Madden tells the story of celebrated actor Molly Fox in her novel Molly's Fox's Birthday, written from the perspective of a playwright friend of Molly's, and told over the course of a single day Photograph: PR

Marilynne Robinson's Home tells the story of prodigal son Jack Boughton, the godson and namesake of John Ames, the protagonist from her Pulitzer-winning Gilead Photograph: PR

Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows is the interwoven story of three families, moving from the detonation of the nuclear bomb in Nagasaki in 1945 to Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 via India and Pakistan Photograph: PR