The longlist for the 2019 Booker Prize has been announced on Wednesday (Jul 24). It contains 13 books by both seasoned and fresh voices including Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Elif Shafak, Kevin Barry and Oyinkan Braithwaite.
According to the Booker website, the list has been prepared from 151 novels, published in the UK and Ireland, by a panel of five judges including the chair, Peter Florence, founder and director of Hay Festival; Liz Calder, former fiction publisher and editor; Xiaolu Guo, novelist, essayist and filmmaker; Afua Hirsch, writer, broadcaster; and Joanna MacGregor, concert pianist, conductor and composer.
“If you only read one book this year, make a leap. Read all 13 of these. There are Nobel candidates and debutants on this list,” says the Chair of the 2019 judges, Peter Florence.
He ensures the literary enthusiasts and readers, “There are no favorites; they are all credible winners. They imagine our world, familiar from news cycle disaster and grievance, with wild humor, deep insight and a keen humanity… They are exacting, enlightening and entertaining. Really – read all of them.”
For the first time, this year, instead of the Man Group, the prize is patronized by Crankstart, a charitable foundation of Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman.
The shortlist of six books will be announced on Sep 3. The shortlisted authors will receive 2,500 pound and a specially bound edition of their book.
The winner of this prize, who will receive 50,000 pound, will be announced on Oct 14.
The Longlist of the Booker Prize 2019:
>> Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)
>> Kevin Barry (Ireland), Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate Books)
>> Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK/Nigeria), My Sister, The Serial Killer (Atlantic Books)
>> Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)
>> Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton)
>> John Lanchester (UK), The Wall (Faber & Faber)
>> Deborah Levy (UK), The Man Who Saw Everything (Hamish Hamilton)
>> Valeria Luiselli (Mexico/Italy), Lost Children Archive (4th Estate)
>> Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown)
>> Max Porter (UK), Lanny (Faber & Faber)
>> Salman Rushdie (UK/India), Quichotte (Jonathan Cape)
>> Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking)
>> Jeanette Winterson (UK), Frankissstein (Jonathan Cape)