Patricia Lockwood, Damon Galgut, Richard Powers, Anuk Arudpragasam, Nadifa Mohamed, and Maggie Shipstead have been announced as the six authors shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize for Fiction which aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written in English and published in the United Kingdom.
Maya Jasanoff, Chair of the 2021 judges, said, “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. We are pleased to present a shortlist that delivers as wide a range of original stories as it does voices and styles.”
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Patricia Lockwood’s sincere and delightfully profane love letter to the infinite scroll, and a meditation on love, language and human connection.
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
An astrobiologist thinks of a creative way to help his rare and troubled son in Richard Powers’ deeply moving and brilliantly original novel.
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
The lives of a fearless female aviator and the actress who portrays her on screen decades later intersect in Maggie Shipstead’s vivid, soaring novel.
The Promise by Damon Galgut
Brutal emotional truths hit home in Damon Galgut’s deft, powerful story of a diminished family and a troubled land.
A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
Anuk Arudpragasam’s masterful novel is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of the devastation of Sri Lanka’s 30-year civil war.
The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
Nadifa Mohamed’s gripping novel about a petty criminal in Cardiff who becomes the last man to be hanged there, wrongfully convicted of murder in 1952.
