The Man Booker Prize Shortlist Is Here!
The shortlist for the 2018 Man Booker Prize was announced today. Each shortlisted author will receive £2,500 and a specially-bound edition of their book. On Tuesday, October 16th the winning book will be announced and the winning author will receive £50,000.
Here’s the list!
- Milkman by Anna Burns (UK)
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (Canada)
- Everything Under by Daisy Johnson (UK)
- The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner (USA)
- The Overstory by Richard Powers (USA)
- The Long Take by Robin Robertson (UK)
The judges for this year’s prize are Kwame Anthony Appiah, Val McDermid, Leo Robson, Jacqueline Rose, and Leanne Shapton. The shortlist was winnowed down from the longlist of 13 books announced on July 23rd.
Some notes on the list: It’s a UK-heavy list, with three of the books from the UK, two from the U.S. and one from Canada, with no other countries represented. It includes four women and two men, and one writer of color. The list contains more genre experimentation than ever before with its inclusion of The Long Take, a novel in verse. Notable books that did not make it from the longlist to the shortlist include Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight and Sally Rooney’s Normal People.
If you want to get a literal read on the nominees yourself, The Mars Room and The Overstory have already been out in the US, and Washington Black joined them just this week. Everything Under is out next month from Graywolf. Milkman and The Long Take are out in 2019, from Graywolf and Knopf, respectively. Of course, you can always pay more for an export edition if you just can’t wait to get your hands on a US edition.
Stay tuned for the announcement of the 2018 Man Booker Prize winner on October 16th!
