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Novelist Ann Patchett has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction for the third time.

She is best known for Bel Canto, the story of a hostage crisis, which won the Orange Prize in 2002.

The US writer's latest novel is State Of Wonder, which is set in the Amazon.

It is nominated for the Orange Prize alongside The Forgotten, by former Booker-winner Anne Enright; and novels by Esi Edugyan, Georgina Harding, Madeline Miller and Cynthia Ozick.

The £30,000 annual prize recognises the work of fiction written in the English language by women.

The winner also receives a limited edition bronze statue known as "the Bessie", created by artist Grizel Niven.

Madeline Miller is the only first-time writer on this year's shortlist. Her debut novel is The Song of Achilles, inspired by Homer's poem The Iliad.

Cynthia James's novel Foreign Bodies was also inspired by another work - it uses Henry James's The Ambassadors as a jumping-off point for a dissection of displacement and inheritance.

Irish novelist Enright is nominated for The Forgotten Waltz, a lyrical tale of love and betrayal.

Esi Edugyan is recognised for her Booker-shortlisted novel Half-Blood Blues, while Georgina Harding receives a nomination for A Painter of Silence, set in wartime Romania.

"This is a shortlist of remarkable quality and variety," said author Joanna Trollope, who is running the judging panel this year.

"It includes six distinctive voices and subjects, four nationalities and an age range of close on half a century. It is a privilege to present it."

Previous winners of the prize, which is backed by the UK charity Booktrust, include Lionel Shriver for We Need to Talk about Kevin (2005), Zadie Smith for On Beauty (2006) and Tea Obreht for The Tiger's Wife (2011).

The winner will be announced on 30 May at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre in London.