The Shortlist was announced last night for the 2024 Booker Prize. The thirteen titles on the Longlist have been whittled down to six:
- Percival Everett - James (America)
- Samantha Harvey - Orbital (UK)
- Rachel Kushner - Creation Lake (America)
- Anne Michaels - Held (Canada)
- Yale van der Wouden - The Safekeep (Netherlands)
- Charlotte Wood - Stone Yard Devotional (Australia)
Chair of the judging panel, Edmund de Waal, said of the shortlist:
“I am enormously proud of this shortlist of six books that have lived with us. We have spent months sifting, challenging, questioning – stopped in our tracks by the power of the contemporary fiction that we have been privileged to read. And here are the books that we need you to read. Great novels can change the reader. They face up to truths and face you in their turn. If that sounds excessive it reflects the urgency that animates these novels. Here is storytelling in which people confront the world in all its instability and complexity. The fault lines of our times are here. Borders and time zones and generations are crossed and explored, conflicts of identity, race and sexuality are brought into renewed focus through memorable voices. The people who come alive here are damaged in ways that we come to know and respect, and we come to care passionately about their histories and relationships."
I am delighted with this shortlist. First, last year the shortlist was dominated by guys named Paul. Here, we have five women on the list. Most of the authors are established, with van der Wouden the only debut novelist. I am also thrilled that Charlotte Wood is on the shortlist. Her books deserve a wide readership and I hope this boosts her profile internationally.
Thus far I have only read Wood's Stone Yard Devotional and Everett's James - both brilliant. My sincere hope is that Everett wins this year's prize. James is a triumph.
The Winner of the Booker Prize, and recipient of £50,000, will be revealed on 12 November 2024. Happy reading!