The 2021 Booker Prize shortlist has been unveiled.
The list of six authors was unveiled on Tuesday in a live online celebration. BBC arts correspondent Rebecca Jones chaired the event from central London.
Debut novelist Patricia Lockwood has made the shortlist for the first time, while Damon Galgut is shortlisted for the third time, and Richard Powers for the second time.
The Booker Prize for Fiction is open to works by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland. The list was chosen from 158 novels published in the UK or Ireland between 1 October 2020 and 30 September 2021.
Here are the six authors on the 2021 Booker Prize shortlist:
Anuk Arudpragasam (Sri Lankan) – A Passage North (Granta Books, Granta Publications)
Damon Galgut (South African) – The Promise (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, PRH)
Patricia Lockwood (American) – No One is Talking About This (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing)
Nadifa Mohamed (British/Somali) – The Fortune Men (Viking, Penguin General, PRH)
Richard Powers (American) – Bewilderment (Hutchinson Heinemann, PRH)
Maggie Shipstead (American) – Great Circle (Doubleday, Transworld Publishers, PRH)
“With so many ambitious and intelligent books before us, the judges engaged in rich discussions not only about the qualities of any given title, but often about the purpose of fiction itself,” Maya Jasanoff, chair of the 2021 judges, said. “We are pleased to present a shortlist that delivers as wide a range of original stories as it does voices and styles.”
The 2021 winner will be announced on 3 November. The winner of the 2021 Booker Prize receives £50,000 ($69,000) and typically enjoys international recognition.
