PJE's Booker Blog

The 2013 Man Booker Prize Shortlist

Here are six more additions to the list of books people pretend to have read,  and another six suicides postponed on World Suicide Prevention Day. It's the "fiendishly difficult to categorise" shortlist for the 2013 Man Booker Prize...

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)
Harvest by Jim Crace (Picador)
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)
The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (Viking)


28 year old New Zealander Eleanor Catton is the youngest ever shortlisted author. At over 800 pages her book is one of the longest ever to be shortlisted, whereas Colm Tóibín's, at barely a hundred pages, is one of the shortest.

Former judge Gaby Wood described it as the "Best Booker short list in living memory". It is certainly the most American, in the sense that at least half of the shortlisted authors live or work in North America, as Philip Hensher recently pointed out.

This year's judges are Robert Macfarlane, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Natalie Haynes, Martha Kearney and Stuart Kelly.

The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced at The Guildhall, London, on October 15th.

posted by PJE @ 12:49 PM