This year’s class of Booker Prize nominees has just been announced. The prestigious prize awards the best English-language fiction published in the UK and/or Ireland. While this is when we’d usually talk about common stylistic threads that bind the longlisted novels, the 13 books each have their unique voice.
“There is no single register here,” wrote Edmund de Waal, the chair of judges, in a statement announcing the list. “We need fiction to do different things – to renew us, give solace, to take us away from ourselves and give us back to ourselves in an expanded and reconnected way. And, of course, to entertain us.”
Among the list are a handful of names familiar to American readers – Pulitzer Prize winner Hisham Matar, Rachel Kushner, Tommy Orange, and more. But three authors made the cut with their debut novel: Colin Barrett, Yael van der Wouden, and Rita Bullwinkel – whose novel, Headshot, follows eight women competing in a boxing competition in Nevada. In the announcement, prize judges said Bullwinkel “elevates the gritty, physical realities of sport to a profound examination of identity, destiny and family dynamics.”
The shortlist will be announced in September. The winner of the prize will be announced in November. The winner will receive 50,000 British pounds (about $64,000), a trophy, and a likely bump in book sales.
Here's the full list:
- Colin Barrett, Wild Houses
- Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot
- Percival Everett, James
- Samantha Harvey, Orbital
- Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake
- Hisham Matar, My Friends
- Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History
- Anne Michaels, Held
- Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars
- Sarah Perry, Enlightenment
- Richard Powers, Playground
- Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep
- Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional
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