This content contains affiliate links. We may earn an affiliate commission when you buy through these links.
The shortlist for the Booker Prize 2021 has been announced! Selected from 158 novels, this year’s shortlist includes 6 novels spanning the world, from South Africa to Sri Lanka to Cardiff and the United States. While novels by well-known authors Kazuo Ishiguro and Rachel Cusk were not shortlisted this year, Damon Galgut made it onto the list for the third time this year with The Promise and Richard Powers with Bewilderment. There are also exciting newcomers at Booker, Anuk Arudpragasam, Nadifa Mohamed, Maggie Shipstead and Patricia Lockwood.
First awarded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to writers of any nationality who write in English and are published in the UK or Ireland. The prize winner will receive £ 50,000 and each shortlisted writer will receive £ 2,500. The jury will announce the winner on November 3rd at an awards ceremony at the BBC Radio Theater.
The jury chair, Maya Jasanoff, said of this year’s shortlist: “Some are acutely introspective and lead us into the minds of a Tamil who is tracking down the scars of the civil war in Sri Lanka and an American who is disconnecting from the Internet a family crisis. Some enter communities in upheaval: the Docklands of Cardiff in the early years of British decolonization and the Pretoria veld in the final years of apartheid. And some have made a global impact after following a mid-century aviator attempting to orbit the planet and a modern-day astrobiologist raising a climate-affected son … As each book is immersed in itself, together they are a comprehensive demonstration of what fiction is doing today. “
Shortlist for the Booker Prize 2021
Today in Books Newsletter
Sign up to Today In Books for daily news and all about the world of books.
Thanks for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox.
By registering, you agree to our terms of use
A passage to the north from Anuk Arudpragasam
Damon Galgut’s promise
Nobody talks about Patricia Lockwood about it
The lucky people by Nadifa Mohamed
Stunned Richard Powers
Great Circle of Maggie Shipstead
The jury for this year’s award includes historian Maya Jasanoff (chairwoman), writer and editor Horatia Harrod, actress Natascha McElhone, two-time Booker writer and professor Chigozie Obioma, and writer and former Archbishop Rowan Williams.
Read more about Book Riot’s coverage of the Booker Prize.
