Two Jewish authors are in contention for the top women’s fiction award in the UK after being named on its shortlist of six.

Linda Grant and Naomi Alderman have both been shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, worth £30,000 in prize money to the winner. 

Ms Grant’s A Dark Circle tells the story of two Jewish twins from the East End of London in a TB sanatorium in Kent just after the Second World War.

In Ms Alderman’s futuristic novel, The Power, women develop the capability to give electric shocks, giving them control over men.

Both are previous winners of the prize when it was sponsored by Orange.

The other authors on the shortlist are Ayobami Adebayo, CE Morgan, Gwendoline Riley and Madeleine Thien. 

The story is told through the eyes of a young Chinese woman who has fled to Canada from Tiananmen Square.

This winner of the award, which was sponsored by Orange for 17 years before Baileys took over in 2014, will be announced in June.