The shortlist for the Booker Prize 2022 has been announced.
The Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969 and is widely considered to be the leading award for literary fiction written in the English language.
Last year, Damon Galgut’s novel The Promise, which dissects the downfall of a white South African family, was named the winner.
The winner receives £50,000 and can expect international recognition and a dramatic increase in global book sales.
Previous winners include Salman Rushdie, VS Naipaul, Hilary Mantel, Bernadine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood.
The nominated authors and works in contention for the 2022 Booker Prize are:
NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwean), Glory
Percival Everett (US), The Trees
Alan Garner (British), Treacle Walker
Shehan Karunatilaka (Sri Lankan), The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
Claire Keegan (Irish), Small Things Like These
Elizabeth Strout (US), Oh William!
This year’s shortlist is notable for having an even split between male and female writers.
In a statement, Neil MacGregor, the chair of the 2022 judging panel, celebrated the diversity represented in the shortlist, while noting that they are about issues that are significant to all.
“These six books we believe speak powerfully about important things,” he wrote. “Set in different places at different times, they are all about events that in some measure happen everywhere, and concern us all.
“Each written in English, they demonstrate what an abundance of Englishes there are, how many distinct worlds, real and imaginary, exist in that simple-seeming space, the Anglosphere.”
The 2022 winner will be announced on 17 October in a ceremony held at the Roundhouse. For the first time since 2019, the final will be held fully in person.
