The Shortlist was announced last night for the 2025 Booker Prize. The thirteen titles on the Longlist have been whittled down to six:
- Susan Choi - Flashlight (USA)
- Kiran Desai - The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny (India)
- Katie Kitamura - Audition (USA)
- Ben Markovits - The Rest of our Lives (USA)
- Andrew Miller - The Land in Winter (UK)
- David Szalay - Flesh (Hungarian-British)
This shortlisted authors are all veteran, critically acclaimed writers. Desai won the Booker in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss and should she win this year she would join a small group of distinguished double winners - Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, JM Coetzee and Hilary Mantel.
Chair of the judging panel, Roddy Doyle, said of the shortlist:
The six [shortlisted books] have two big things in common. Their authors are in total command of their own store of English, their own rhythm, their own expertise; they have each crafted a novel that no one else could have written. And all of the books, in six different and very fresh ways, find their stories in the examination of the individual trying to live with – to love, to seek attention from, to cope with, to understand, to keep at bay, to tolerate, to escape from – other people. In other words, they are all brilliantly written and they are all brilliantly human.’
I haven't read any of these novels yet. I have heard lots of great things about Flashlight, The Land in Winter and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny so will likely start there, although Desai's book is not available in Australia until 30 September.
The Winner of the Booker Prize, and recipient of £50,000, will be revealed on 10 November 2025. Happy reading!