EYES ON THE PRIZE
KERRI-ANN ROPER takes us through this year’s Man Booker Prize longlist as the prestigious award celebrates its 50th year
THE English Patient author Michael Ondaatje has been named as one of 13 writers on this year’s Man Booker Prize longlist, just weeks after he took home the Golden Man Booker, a one-off accolade to mark the literary prize’s 50th anniversary.
His seventh novel, Warlight, is on the list which features four debut novels and four authors under the age of 30.
Former Western Mail journalist Belinda Bauer, who lives near Barry, is on the longlist for her crime novel Snap.
The debut novels are: Scottish poet Robin Robertson’s The Long Take, which is a novel in verse; Sophie Mackintosh’s The Water Cure; Guy Gunaratne’s In Our Mad And Furious City, and Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under.
Johnson and Sally Rooney (Normal People) are the youngest authors on the list, at 27 years old.
Of the 13 authors, six are from the UK, three from the United States and two each from Ireland and Canada respectively. The longlist also boasts a majority of female authors, with seven women included.
Cartoonist Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina is the first graphic novel to be on a Man Booker Prize longlist. His book looks at the effect of 24-hour news following the disappearance of a young girl.
Judge and bestselling crime novelist Val McDermid says: “We all read it and were blown away by it. The graphic novel has increasingly become front and centre in terms of storytelling (and) we felt (Sabrina) does just what good fiction should do.”
Author Esi Edugyan, longlisted for her latest novel Washington Black, was previously shortlisted for the prestigious literary prize, while Irish author Donal Ryan and US author Richard Powers have both made the longlist in the past. Northern Irish author Anna Burns is longlisted this year with her novel Milkman.
Ondaatje’s 1992 novel, The English Patient, was named the best work of fiction from the last five decades of the Man Booker Prize at the Golden Man Booker ceremony earlier this month. That work shared the 1992 award with Barry Unsworth’s historical novel, Sacred Hunger.
The Man Booker Prize for fiction was first awarded in 1969 and this year, for the first time, the list includes novels published in Ireland. Previously only entries written in English and published by a UK publisher were eligible.
In 2014 the prize was opened up to US writers.
Philosopher and novelist, Kwame Anthony Appiah, chair of this year’s judges, says: “Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the times, there were many dystopian fictions on our bookshelf – and many novels we found inspirational as well as disturbing.
“Some of those we have chosen for this longlist feel urgent and topical, others might have been admired and enjoyed in any year.
“All of these books – which take in slavery, ecology, missing persons, inner-city violence, young love, prisons, trauma, race – capture something about a world on the brink.
“Among their many remarkable qualities is a willingness to take risks with form. And we were struck, overall, by their disruptive power: these novels disrupted the way we thought about things we knew about, and made us think about things we didn’t know about.
“Still, despite what they have in common, every one of these books is wildly distinctive.
The rest of the judging panel is comprised of cultural critic Leo Robson, writer and critic Jacqueline Rose and graphic novelist Leanne Shapton.
Organisers said this year’s
171 submissions were the highest number submitted in the literary prize’s history.
The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 20, and the winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced on October 16.