Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

NZ author Smaill on Booker Prize longlist

New Zealand author Anna Smaill’s debut dystopian novel The Chimes (Sceptre) is one of 13 titles longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

The full longlist is:

  • Did You Ever Have a Family (Bill Clegg, Jonathan Cape) 
  • The Green Road (Anne Enright, Jonathan Cape)
  • A Brief History of Seven Killings (Marlon James, Oneworld Publications)
  • The Moor’s Account (Laila Lalami, Periscope, Garnet Publishing)
  • Satin Island (Tom McCarthy, Jonathan Cape)
  • The Fishermen (Chigozie Obioma, Scribe)
  • The Illuminations (Andrew O’Hagan, Faber)
  • Lila (Marilynne Robinson, Virago)           
  • Sleeping on Jupiter (Anuradha Roy, MacLehose Press)
  • The Year of the Runaways (Sunjeev Sahota, Picador)
  • The Chimes (Anna Smaill, Sceptre)
  • A Spool of Blue Thread (Anne Tyler, Chatto & Windus)
  • A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara, Picador).

 

The longlist consists of five US writers, three UK writers and one writer each from Ireland, New Zealand, India, Nigeria and Jamaica. This is the second year the prize has been open to writers outside the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth countries.

Three of the authors—Anne Enright, Tom McCarthy and Andrew O’Hagan—have previously been shortlisted for the prize, with Enright the only previous winner. Smaill is one of three debut novelists to be longlisted, alongside Chigozie Obioma and Bill Clegg.

Two titles are yet to be released in Australia. They are: Did You Ever Have a Family (Bill Clegg, Jonathan Cape), which will be available in October, and The Moor’s Account (Laila Lalami, Periscope).

Chair of judges Michael Wood said of the longlist: ‘The range of different performances and forms of these novels is amazing. All of them do something exciting with the language they have chosen to use.’

The shortlist will be announced on 15 September, ahead of the winners announcement on 13 October. Each of the shortlisted authors receives £2500 (A$5346) and a specially bound edition of their book. The winner is awarded a further £50,000 (A$106,883).

Last year’s winner was Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Vintage), which Man Booker Prize organisers report has gone on to sell almost 800,000 copies worldwide.

For more information, visit the Man Booker Prize website here.

 

Category: Local news