Booker Prize Longlist 2019
...and another reason I hate longlists, sorry, where was I? Anyway, I wrote this sitting in the kitchen sink. Well, almost. Tis hot here.
The 2019 Booker Prize longlist was revealed at midnight, and it's a heavyweight list:
Margaret Atwood (Canada)
The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)
Kevin Barry (Ireland)
Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate Books)
Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK/Nigeria)
My Sister, The Serial Killer (Atlantic 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)
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria)
An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown)
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)
Jeanette Winterson (UK)
Frankissstein (Jonathan Cape)
I say revealed at midnight, lots of book retailers were in the know for who knows how long, but hey make me try to get online in the middle of a hot night, why don't you?
The judges this year are chaired by Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival. He is joined by Liz Calder, co-founder of Bloomsbury, the novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo, writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch, and the pianist and composer Joanna MacGregor. They read 151 novels.
I have only read two so far, but of those, Frankissstein would be my tip for the prize. It combines the historic with the futuristic, a lightness of touch with depth of intellect, and is outrageously funny. It's astonishing that Jeanette Winterson has not been longlisted for the Booker before now (as far as I can tell - longlists were not published before 2001.) Ali Smith's Spring ought to have been on the list as well, but it looks like she hasn't changed her mind about withdrawing her work from consideration.
The most literally heavyweight tome on this literary heavyweight list is supplied by the only American to make the cut: Lucy Ellmann, whose Ducks, Newburyport is a thousand page single-sentence stream of consciousness. She deserves some kind of prize just for the line "Super callous fragile racist sexist Nazi Potus" about a certain half-man-half-goldfish. As does everyone who manages to read it all.
I look forward to reading Sir Salman Rushdie 'reimagining' Don Quixote and Margaret Atwood's long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale - perhaps the literary publishing event of the year. Peter Florence described The Testaments as "terrifying and exhilarating.” Although we have a long wait to find out just how, as it will not be published until September 10th - a week after the announcement of the shortlist on Tuesday 3rd September.
The winner will be announced on Monday 14th October at an awards ceremony at London’s Guildhall.
In other Booker news Jokha Alharthi and translator Marilyn Booth won the £50,000 Man Booker International Prize 2019 for Celestial Bodies, published by the small Scottish publisher Sandstone Press. It was the last to be sponsored by the Man Group, with Silicon Valley venture capitalist Sir Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman’s charitable foundation Crankstart taking over sponsorship of the Booker Prizes in a five-year deal.
posted by PJE @ 7:15 PM
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