This year’s Booker Prizes longlist of 13 book nominations have been revealed and we will be giving our readers a brief summary of the nomination, the list was compiled from 162 English-language novels published in the UK or Ireland. The Booker Prize rewards the finest in fiction, highlighting great books to readers and transforming authors’ careers, it is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original novel written in the English language. Last year the prize was won jointly by Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo.
The list of nominations and a brief summary: –
Diane Cook – The New Wilderness
The New Wilderness is Diane Cook’s debut novel, it is a literary tale about ecological disaster, coupled with a deeply personal story of a mother-daughter relationship. It tells the story of a group of idealistic men and women who decide to leave their over-polluted city behind to set up a new community in the wild. Published by Simon and Schuster
Tsitsi Dangarembga – This Mournable Body
Published by Graywolf Press, This Mournable Body explores the obstacles facing women in Zimbabwe, by one of the country’s most notable authors Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow’s boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.
Avni Doshi – Burnt Sugar
Burnt Sugar is Doshi’s debut novel about mothers and daughters, obsession and betrayal. Avni Doshi was born in New Jersey in 1982 and is currently based in Dubai. The novel is published by Penguin UK.
Gabriel Krauze – Who They Was
Krauze’s debut novel Who They Was is the first-hand account of a young man who has lived a life of violent crime, and who expresses it boldly and eloquently. Krauze grew up in London in a Polish family and was drawn to a life of crime and gangs from an early age. Now in his thirties he has left that world behind and is recapturing his life through writing. The book is published by Fourth Estate.
Hilary Mantel – The Mirror & The Light
The Mirror & The Light is a historical novel by English writer Hilary Mantel. Following Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012), it is the final installment in her trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It covers the last four years of his life, from 1536 until his death by execution in 1540.Mantel’s twelfth novel, and her first in almost eight years, The Mirror & The Light was published by Fourth Estate.
Colum McCann – Apeirogon
Based on the true-life friendship of two men whose daughters were killed in the Middle East; Bassam Aramin, and an Israeli, Rami Elhanan; An Israeli, against the occupation. A Palestinian, studying the Holocaust.The men are united in their grief – they lost their daughters: Smadar, killed at the age of 13 by a suicide bomber, and Abir, assassinated aged 10 by a trigger of the Israeli army. Both men join the Parents Circle, a group of the fellow-bereaved who unite in their sorrow to press for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Apeirogon is published by Bloomsbury Publishing.
Maaza Mengiste – The Shadow King
Mengiste’s tale of womanhood and war during the Italian invasion of Abyssinia transforms one woman’s remarkable experiences into a microcosm of conflict as a whole. With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid. Her new employer, Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilise his strongest men before the Italians invade. Hirut and the other women long to do more than care for the wounded and bury the dead. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile and Ethiopia quickly loses hope, it is Hirut who offers a plan to maintain morale. She helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms. The Shadow King is published by Canongate Books Ltd.
By Raya AlJadir
