The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 13
After 20 years, Indian author Arundhati Roy has made it to the longlist of The Man Booker Prize again, with her latest novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
Roy, who won the 1997 prize for her The God of Small Things, is now competing with four authors each from the UK and the US along with two Irish and two Pakistani writers. The 13 novels longlist was chosen from 144 submissions published in the UK between October 1, 2016, and September 30, 2017.
Judges described The Ministry of Utmost Happiness as “a rich and vital book” that “comes from the bowels of India.” The book was thought by the judges to be of “remarkable scale” and to have “extraordinary style and intelligence.”
The American writers on the list are Paul Auster for 4 3 2 1, Emily Fridlund for History of Wolves, George Saunders for Lincoln in the Bardo and Colson Whitehead for The Underground Railroad. American writers have been considered for the Prize only since 2014, and Paul Beatty became the first American author to win it in 2016 for his work The Sellout.
This year’s longlist was selected by a panel of five judges: Baroness Lola Young (Chair), literary critic Lila Azam Zanganeh, Man Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Sarah Hall, artist Tom Philips, and travel writer Colin Thubron.
The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 13, Wednesday, at a press conference by Man Group, the sponsor of the prize. The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. The 2017 winner will be announced on October 17,Tuesday, in London’s Guildhall at a black-tie dinner. The ceremony will be broadcast by the BBC. The winner of the 2017 Man Booker Prize will receive £50,000.
Apart from Roy, two other Indian authors who won the prize are Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss and Aravind Adiga for The White Tiger.
First awarded in 1969, the Man Booker Prize is recognized as the leading prize for literary fiction written in English. It is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK. Earlier it was restricted for the authors from the UK and Commonwealth.
Here’s the full 2017 longlist:
4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (US) (Faber & Faber)
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Ireland) (Faber & Faber)
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (US) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan-UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Ireland) (Canongate)
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (UK) (4th Estate)
Elmet by Fiona Mozley (UK) (JM Originals)
The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (India) (Hamish Hamilton)
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (US) (Bloomsbury)
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (UK-Pakistan) (Bloomsbury)
Autumn by Ali Smith (UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
Swing Time by Zadie Smith (UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (US) (Fleet)