Booker Prize 2024: Shortlist is out; women dominate the list

2024 Booker Prize The list of candidates is already ready and, curiously, of the six names, five are from women authorsIn its 55-year history, this is the first time that women have dominated the shortlist. It is also the first time that a Dutch author has appeared on the list.

Shortlisted names will receive £2,500 and the winner, whose name will be announced on 12 November, will take home £50,000.

Here is the list of shortlisted names:

For the uninitiated, the coveted Booker Prize is open to works of fiction written by Authors worldwide. In addition, the book must be published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

About the books:

Percival Everett’s James is a retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It is written from the perspective of a runaway slave named Jim. Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake is a spy thriller in which an American woman infiltrates a radical anarchist collective in rural France. Samantha Harvey’s Orbital is about a team of astronauts on the International Space Station. Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep is a queer love story set in post-Nazi Netherlands. It tells the story of how a lonely young woman’s life is turned upside down when a guest comes to stay at her country home. Charlotte Woods’ Stone Yard Devotion is about a middle-aged woman who retreats to a convent in New South Wales. It also celebrates female friendships. Anna Michaels’ Held is a story about a family saga that explores the memories of four generations.

What the judges said:

Jury president Edmund de Waal had only positive words to say about the shortlisted books. “My copies of these novels are very worn, covered in scribbles. I’ve carried them everywhere – certainly the measure necessary for a really good novel,” he said. He added that these are the kind of books that make you want to keep reading, to call your friends and tell them about them, novels that inspired us to write, to compose music.

Novelist Sara Collins, one of the judges, said: “It was a real surprise to us. We made the shortlist, sat down and looked at the pile and someone said, ‘Ha, there are five women in there. ’” She added that each book was extraordinary. “My experience as a writer is that the publishing world is… dominated at certain levels by women, but literary recognition… still seems to be reserved for men,” Sara said.

The judges selected six books from 13 longlisted titles, known as the Booker Dozen. The books were selected from a total of 156 books published between October 2023 and September 2024.

The judging panel includes The Guardian fiction jury Justine Jordan, writer Yiyun Li and musician Nitin Sawhney.