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Booker Prize 2021 Shortlist: ‘Absorbing Global Stories Of Life And Death’
Booker Prize 2021 shortlist: ‘Absorbing global stories of life and death’
The chair of the judges said choosing the six “immersive” books had felt “transporting in a year when so many of us have been confined to home”.
The list includes three American writers and, for the second year in a row, only one British author.
The longlisted authors who missed out included Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro.
The novelists who did make the cut include Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer Richard Powers and Damon Galgut, from South Africa, who has been nominated for the Booker twice before.
The prestigious British-based £50,000 award is open to any authors writing in English, and the scarcity of UK authors was “just a coincidence”, according to one judge.
“While judging the Booker Prize we look at not just what the writers are saying but how they are saying it, and therefore nationalities do not really matter,” said Chigozie Obioma, who is on the panel six years after being shortlisted twice himself.
Last year, the sole British representative, Douglas Stuart, went on to win. This year, British-Somali Nadifa Mohamed is nominated for her third novel The Fortune Men.
The nominees in full:
Anuk Arudpragasam – A Passage North. In his second novel, the Sri Lankan author explores the lasting effects of the trauma and violence of his country’s civil war, and a past love affair. “We felt that he was taking on with great seriousness this question of, how can you grasp the present, while also trying to make sense of the past?” said judge Horatia Harrod.
Damon Galgut – The Promise. The South African writer’s ninth novel follows a white family over the decades from the Apartheid era. “The ultimate question that the novel asks is, is justice – true justice – possible in this world?” Obioma said. “If it is, then what might that look like?”
Patricia Lockwood – No One Is Talking About This. This is the first novel by the American poet and memoirist. It follows a woman catapulted to social media fame, told using what Booker judge Rowan Williams described as the “unpromising medium of online prattle”. When reality impinges on this online existence, it ends up being a story “with intense, emotional energy and truthfulness”, he said.
Nadifa Mohamed – The Fortune Men. Mohamed was born in Somaliland and raised in Britain, and her book is set in the docks of post-war Cardiff Bay. It fictionalises the story of Mahmood Mattan, a real Somali sailor who was wrongly accused of murder. “This is a story about the past that has great significance for the present,” said judging chair Maya Jasanoff.
Richard Powers – Bewilderment. The US author won the Pulitzer for his last novel The Overstory. Here, a widowed astrobiologist turns to experimental treatments to help his nine-year-old son with additional needs – and take him to other planets. It is “a clarion call for us all to wake up and realise what our minds might be truly capable of if we were less obedient to the status quo,” judge Natascha McElhone said.
Maggie Shipstead – Great Circle. Another American author, Shipstead’s third novel intertwines the stories of a daring post-war female pilot and a 21st century Hollywood actress who is trying to rescue her reputation by making a film about her. It “speaks to ever-present questions about freedom and constraints, particularly in women’s lives”, Jasanoff said.
Jasanoff explained: “Our shortlist is immersive – stories that you can get absorbed in, voices that get inside your head, which feels quite reflective of the experience of reading in lockdown.
“Our shortlist is global – in their authors and their settings – which feels transporting in a year when so many of us have been confined to home.
“And our shortlist engages with matters of life and death, which feels quite poignant and pertinent in this catastrophic year.