Today the Longlist was announced for the 2021 Booker prize. The thirteen titles nominated include authors from America, Britain, Canada, Sri Lanka and South Africa.
The Booker Prize is always a strange collection of titles, but what I love about the Longlist is that it introduces me to many authors and books I do not know. From last year's Longlist I acquired Diane Cook's The New Wilderness, Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light, and Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain, although admittedly the pandemic changed my reading focus and I have not yet read all of these titles.I haven't read any of the books on this year's Longlist yet, so let's take a quick look at the nominees:
Krishan receives a call advising that his grandmother's caretaker Rani has died. As he travels home to attend Rani's funeral by train from Colombo, he ruminates on love, loss and the thirty-year civil war that has engulfed his homeland. Arudpragasam is the author of The Story of a Brief Marriage (2016) which was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Sri Lanka has been on my travel wish-list for many years (and it will likely be many years before I can travel again!), so I am interested in this novel.
On a farm outside Pretoria, a privileged white family gathers for the funeral of matriarch Rachel. Their faithful black maid Salome lives on the property and was promised the deed to her home by Rachel on her deathbed. Despite this promise, and the constant reminders from the youngest daughter Amor, the family does not act to transfer ownership and conflict ensues. Galgut was previously shortlisted for the Booker for his novels The Good Doctor (2003) and In a Strange Room (2010).
Ishiguro has been nominated four times and won the Booker Prize over 30 years ago for his beautiful novel The Remains of the Day (1989). Klara and the Sun is his first novel since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017. Set in the near future, Klara is a solar-powered, humanoid artificial friend who is purchased as a companion for a teenage girl. The novel explores what it means to be human. I have this book and really look forward to reading it. (Update Aug 2021: read review)
Samuel lives alone on an island, in charge of managing the lighthouse. When a refugee washes up on shore, Samuel recalls his past on the mainland and struggles to adapt to the disruption of his solitude. The novel explores friendship, fear, and the notion of home. Jennings previous works include her debut novel Finding Soutbek and her memoir Travels with My Father (2016).
Set in a small town in Northern Ontario in 1972, the story follows seven year old Clara and her family. Clara's older sister has run away from home. Her mysterious new neighbour Liam unexpectedly inherited the house and has moved in following the breakdown of his marriage. The third main character is Mrs Orchard, an elderly woman who is reliving memories from her past. Mary Lawson is the author of three novels set in Northern Ontario. Having grown up in Ontario myself, I am always on the look out for novels that remind me of home so I may check this one out.
A woman famed for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her followers. She shares her insights while travelling, blurring the virtual and real worlds. Suddenly, she is summoned home by her mother due to a family tragedy and finds the real world is demanding more of her attention. American novelist, essayist and poet Patricia Lockwood is perhaps best known for her memoir Priestdaddy (2017). No One is Talking About This is her debut novel, and it was also shortlisted for the 2021 Women's Prize.
Set in 1950s Cardiff, Mahmood Mattan is a family man and a petty criminal. When a shopkeeper is killed, Mattan is a suspect but he knows he has an alibi. This novel is a fictionalised account of the story of Mattan who was wrongfully convicted of murder and was the last man hanged in Cardiff prison. Somali-British author Mohamed won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2014 for her second novel The Orchard of Lost Souls. The premise of this story sounds intriguing. I will try and track down a copy of this book.
Powers is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the much-lauded Booker shortlisted The Overstory (2018). In his latest novel he follows widowed astrobiologist Theo Byrne, who is raising his nine-year-old son Robin. The boy has been diagnosed as being 'on the spectrum' and after an incident at school, Theo needs to consider how to best care for his son.
This novel follows two characters on a quest for freedom. Mehar is a young bride in Punjab in 1929 trying to discover the identity of her new husband. In 1999 a young man who grew up in England arrives in Punjab trying to rid himself of addiction. Sahota was previously shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel The Year of the Runaways (2015).
In prohibition era Montana, teenage Marian drops out of school and finds a patron who will support her desire to become a pilot. As a daredevil aviatrix, she circumnavigates the world and flies over the poles. A century later, actress Hadley Baxter is set to play Marian in a biopic and becomes immersed in the pilot's disappearance in Antarctica. Shipstead is the author of Astonish Me and Seating Arrangements. I am intrigued by the description of this story and will search out a copy of this book.
In 1944 five children are among a crowd outside the Woolworths in South London to see a delivery of saucepans - the first new metal items since the war began. Moments later, a bombing raid incinerates everyone around. In this novel, the author tells the story of these five children and what could have been if they had not been there on that fateful day. Spufford is the author of countless works of non-fiction, and is a Professor of Creative Writing.
So that is the Longlist!
Maya Jasanoff, chair of the judges panel, said:
One thing that unites these books is their power to absorb the reader in an unusual story, and to do so in an artful, distinctive voice. Many of them consider how people grapple with the past - whether personal experiences of grief or dislocation or the historical legacies of enslavement, apartheid and civil war. Many examine intimate relations placed under stress, and through them they meditate on ideas of freedom and obligation, or on what makes us human.
The longlist is previewed in this announcement video:
This is an interesting longlist and I am a bit surprised that there are a few titles not on the list which I thought would have been including Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where are You, Pat Barker's The Women of Troy, and Susanna Clarke's wonderful Piranesi. I had also secretly hoped that Australian authors Richard Flanagan (The Living Sea of Waking Dreams) and Tara June Winch (The Yield) would make the cut.
Of all these titles, the ones I am most interested in are the books by Ishiguro, Cusk, Shipstead, Arudpragasam and Mohamed.
The Shortlist will be announced on 14 September 2021, with the Winner of the £50,000 revealed in November. Better get reading!