Arundhati Roy, Zadie Smith & George Saunders among 13 authors longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize unveiled the 13 titles longlisted for its annual £50,000 ($81,625 Cdn) award. The 'Man Booker Dozen,' as it's known in the U.K. where the prize is based, is dominated this year by writers from the U.S. and U.K. No Canadians made the 2017 longlist.
India's Arundhati Roy is on the longlist for her second novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Her first book, The God of Small Things, published 20 years ago, won the Man Booker Prize in 1997.
British writer Zadie Smith was selected for her novel Swing Time, a tale of rivalry and friendship between two tap dancers. American short story writer George Saunders is longlisted for his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo.
Sebastian Barry received a nod for Days Without End. The war epic won the Costa Book of the Year and Walter Scott Prize this year. Colson Whitehead is a finalist for his bestseller The Underground Railroad, which previously won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
- Sebastian Barry on how his family's history inspires his fiction
- Colson Whitehead on slavery, examined and reimagined
The complete longlist is comprised of:
- 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (U.S.)
- Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Ireland)
- History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (U.S.)
- Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan-U.K.)
- Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Ireland)
- Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (U.K.)
- Elmet by Fiona Mozley (U.K.)
- The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (India)
- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (U.S.)
- Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (Pakistan-U.K.)
- Autumn by Ali Smith (U.K.)
- Swing Time by Zadie Smith (U.K.)
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (U.S.)
American Paul Beatty won the Man Booker Prize in 2016 for The Sellout. Canadians Madeleine Thien and David Szalay were both on the shortlist for their books Do Not Say We Have Nothing and All That Man Is, respectively.
- Paul Beatty on the sobriety of African-American literature
- Madeleine Thien on the unresolved questions at the heart of Do Not Say We Have Nothing
A shortlist of six books will be announced on Sept. 13, with the winner announcement to follow on Oct. 17, 2017 in London.
144 titles were submitted for consideration for the 2017 prize. The Man Booker Prize is open to any book-length work of fiction written in English that has been published in the U.K. This year's award is being judged by Baroness Lola Young, literary critic Lila Zam Zangeneh, novelist Sarah Hall, artist Tom Phillips and writer Colin Thubron.