A TATTOOED former biker from Bradford, a university lecturer born in a German refugee camp and an award-winning novelist from Kent are the British women shortlisted for this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction.

The six finalists are a mix of relatively unknown writers and established authors including Jane Gardam, who has written 15 books and has twice won the Whitbread Best Novel.

Joolz Denby, 50, has 25 body piercings, tattoos over more than 70 per cent of her body, and has written her third book, Billie Morgan, about a “biker chick” involved in a murder.

Complete with a teenage gang rape and a severed head, her latest offering is not for the faint hearted, and is published by the small, independent publisher, Serpent’s Tail.

Marina Lewycka, 58, a lecturer in media and public relations at Sheffield Hallam University who was born to Ukrainian parents in a refugee camp in 1946 comes to the shortlist with her first novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

It tells the story of a gold-digging Ukrainian woman who marries a widower from Peterborough 48 years her senior to get a British passport.

Ms Lewycka, who is married with a grown-up daughter, suffered literary knockbacks until her work was marked by an external examiner during a creative writing course. The examiner, who was also a literary agent, was so impressed with her novel that he offered to find her a publishing deal.

Ms Gardam has been nominated for Old Filth, which tells the story of a former international lawyer whose name stood for Failed in London Try Hong Kong. Three Americans have also been nominated for the £30,000 prize for women authors. Lionel Shriver is nominated for her seventh novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin. Sheri Holman is on the list for The Mammoth Cheese, her third novel.

Maile Meloy, has been shortlisted for her first novel Liars and Saints.The winner will be announced on June 7.

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