Irish writers, debuts – and groundbreaking sci-fi: the Booker longlist in depth

The list is out … The Booker longlist 2023. Photograph: The Booker prize

Irish writers, debuts – and groundbreaking sci-fi: the Booker longlist in depth

This article is more than 3 months old

The personal meets the political in a list that includes dystopia and SF as well as little-known debuts
 Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist

Justine Jordan
Tuesday 1 August 2023

Those accustomed to complaining about the number of American writers nominated for the Booker prize since the widening of eligibility in 2014 will get a pleasant surprise this year: the sector that leads is Irish writers – and people called Paul. That’s not the only surprise; the judges have chosen to spotlight some little-known debuts in the place of major novels. While it feels reductive to read the longlist in terms of what’s not included, many will have expected to see Zadie Smith’s September novel The Fraud, and Tom Crewe’s acclaimed debut The New Life, among others.

The presence of four Irish writers, meanwhile, is far from surprising (and that’s without the inclusion of Anne Enright’s fine forthcoming novel The Wren, The Wren, or Claire Kilroy’s scorching tale of new motherhood, Soldier Sailor). Sebastian Barry is a veteran author who pushes himself with each new book, and Old God’s Time is a devastating, dreamlike study of the lifetime repercussions of historic childhood abuse in Catholic institutions. Paul Murray, loved for 2010’s tragicomic Skippy Dies, writes the novel of his career with The Bee Sting, which uncovers a family’s slow-burning secrets against a backdrop of climate anxiety – in terms of pure page-turning pleasure, this is probably the most enjoyable novel on the list. Elaine Feeney’s How to Build a Boat explores the meaning of community and outsiderdom through one boy’s story, while Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, scheduled for September, is a chilling study of Ireland becoming a fascist state.

Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist

Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist

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)

Ayòbámi Adébáyò / A Novelist Bridges the Class Divide in Contemporary Nigeria

 

A Novelist Bridges the Class Divide in Contemporary Nigeria

In Ayòbámi Adébáyò’s “A Spell of Good Things,” the lives of a working-class boy and a wealthy young doctor converge to expose the precarity of the social order.

Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist

A SPELL OF GOOD THINGS, by Ayòbámi Adébáyò

During the pandemic, my walking path in Berkeley, Calif., trailed past the Seabreeze encampment where a number of the city’s homeless population were living. Various municipal initiatives sprang up to try to protect this and other encampments from Covid-19, but these came on the heels of longstanding tensions between the housed and unhoused in the Bay Area — tensions that had, for the city, largely taken the shape of concerns about trash and safety. Accompanying these concerns I sensed an undercurrent of distaste: The encampments were unsightly, ugly, embarrassing. Locals wanted to help these members of their community, but more than that they really wanted them gone. Just over a year later, they were.

A Spell of Good Things by Ayòbámi Adébáyò review – a blistering indictment of the abuse of power

Adébáyò’s compelling second novel follows the fates of two families who come up against the failings of the state

Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist

Chronic corruption and poor investment in health and education are responsible for many of Nigeria’s woes. Set in Osun state in the early 00s, Ayòbámi Adébáyò’s compelling second novel explores the country’s inequalities and contradictions.