The longlist for the 2019 Booker Prize has been announced. Released on Tuesday, July 23, the list, otherwise known as ‘Booker Dozen’, features 13 authors including Nigeria’s Oyinkan Braithwaite for My Sister, The Serial Killer (Atlantic Books) and Chigozie Obioma for An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown).
The statement by Booker Prize names the other authors as Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus), Kevin Barry (Ireland), Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate Books), Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press), Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton), John Lanchester (UK), The Wall (Faber & Faber), Deborah Levy (UK), The Man Who Saw Everything (Hamish Hamilton), Valeria Luiselli (Mexico/Italy), Lost Children Archive (4th Estate), Max Porter (UK), Lanny (Faber & Faber), Salman Rushdie (UK/India), Quichotte (Jonathan Cape), Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking), and Jeanette Winterson (UK), Frankissstein (Jonathan Cape).
This year’s longlist of 13 books was selected by a panel of five judges: founder and director of Hay Festival Peter Florence (Chair); former fiction publisher and editor Liz Calder; novelist, essayist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo; writer, broadcaster and former barrister Afua Hirsch; and concert pianist, conductor and composer Joanna MacGregor.
The list was chosen from 151 novels published in the UK or Ireland between 1 October 2018 and 30 September 2019.
The Booker Prize for Fiction, first awarded in 1969, is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland.
Chair of the 2019 judges, Peter Florence, says: “If you only read one book this year, make a leap. Read all 13 of these. There are Nobel candidates and debutants on this list. There are no favourites; they are all credible winners. They imagine our world, familiar from news cycle disaster and grievance, with wild humour, deep insight and a keen humanity. These writers offer joy and hope. They celebrate the rich complexity of English as a global language. They are exacting, enlightening and entertaining. Really – read all of them.”
The shortlist of six books will be announced on Tuesday, September 3 at a morning press conference. The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.
The 2019 winner will be announced on Monday, October 14 at an awards ceremony at London’s Guildhall, one of the highlights of the cultural year. The ceremony will be broadcast by the BBC.
The winner of the 2019 Booker Prize receives £50,000.
