Previously nominated authors Sebastian Barry, Tan Twan Eng and Paul Murray join 13-strong field including four debuts
Ella Creamer
Tuesday 1 August 2023
A longlist of 13 “original and thrilling” books offering “startling portraits of the current” are in contention for the 2023 Booker Prize, the UK’s most prestigious literary award.
The longlist features four debut novelists and six others who have been longlisted for the first time, alongside Sebastian Barry, Tan Twan Eng and Paul Murray, who have seven previous Booker nominations between them.
The Booker prize 2023 longlist
A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (Canongate)
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (Faber & Faber)
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (Granta Books)
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (4th Estate)
How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Harvill Secker)
This Other Eden by Paul Harding (Hutchinson Heinemann)
Pearl by Siân Hughes (The Indigo Press)
All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow (Tinder Press)
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Oneworld)
In Ascension by Martin MacInnes (Atlantic Books)
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo (Picador)
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Hamish Hamilton)
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (Canongate)
Novels by Irish writers make up a third of the list for the first time, including Murray’s The Bee Sting, about an Irish family in financial and emotional turmoil, featuring “secrets signposted and exquisitely revealed” with “each line soaked in irony ranging from the gentle to the savage”, according to The Guardian review.
Including this year’s longlisted authors, 37 Irish writers have been recognised by the Booker in the prize’s history, making Ireland the country that has produced the most nominees relative to population size.
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ is the fifth Nigerian author to be nominated for the Booker, with her novel A Spell of Good Things, an “examination of class and desire in modern-day Nigeria” that is a “powerful, staggering read,” according to judges.
This year’s longlist was selected by a judging panel comprising twice-shortlisted novelist Esi Edugyan, actor Adjoa Andoh, poet Mary Jean Chan, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro and actor and author Robert Webb.
“We read 163 novels across seven months, and in that time whole worlds opened to us. We were transported to early 20th-century Maine and Penang, to the vibrant streets of Lagos and the squash courts of London, to the blackest depths of the Atlantic, and into a dystopic Ireland where the terrifying loss of rights comes as a hard warning,” said judging chair Edugyan.
Eligible titles that did not make the longlist include Zadie Smith’s forthcoming The Fraud and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, which this year won the Pulitzer prize for fiction and the Women’s prize.
Seven of the longlisted titles come from independent publishers, including Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, about an Ireland in the grip of a tyrannical government, published by Oneworld in September.
Edugyan said that the longlist is defined by “the irreverence of new voices, by the iconoclasm of established ones,” adding that the novels are “small revolutions, each seeking to energise and awaken the language.”
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| Sebastian Barry |
This is the fifth time that Barry has been recognised by the Booker. His novel, Old God’s Time, follows a retired policeman as a murder investigation leads him to face his past. Tan Twan Eng’s place on this year’s longlist means he has been Booker-nominated for all three of his novels. The House of Doors, his latest, draws on the life and writing of Somerset Maugham.
The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 21, and the winner will be revealed on 26 November. The winner receives £50,000, while shortlisted novelists each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.
“The range of experience, expertise and sensibility among this year’s judges led them to seek novels that both advanced the form and allowed the reader to understand something about the world,” said Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation.
“It’s a pleasure to add to the Booker library this selection of debut novels, new work from established Booker authors, and books by other writers at the peak of their practice who are new to the prize. We hope every reader finds something to love on this year’s list,” she added.
Recent winners of the Booker prize include Shehan Karunatilaka, Damon Galgut, Douglas Stuart, Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood.
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