The Booker Prize 2022 shortlist announced: NPR

The six novels shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.

Booker Prize Foundation

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Booker Prize Foundation

The six novels shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.

Booker Prize Foundation

This year’s Booker Prize shortlist has been announced. A panel of judges filtered the long list of 13 books into the following six titles:

Glory by No Violet Bulawayo

Little things like this by Claire Keegan

the trees by Percival Everett

The Seven Moons of His Excellency Almaida By Sheehan Karunatilaka

Hey William! by Elizabeth Strout

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Shortlisted directly from London’s Serpentine Pavilion, Neil MacGregor declared that rulers were “totally free to set their own standards” but were looking for authors who “created a world, an imagined world in which we can feel our own”. He said in all six books, “Something very important to an individual or a society happens. They realize what they are and what they can become.”

He joked that they too “didn’t last long” and were showing “a great editing”.

The other judges were academics and broadcaster Shahida Bari. Dated Helen Castor. Novelist and critic M. John Harrison. Novelist, poet and professor Alain Mabanko.

The long and short lists were drawn from 169 novels published between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022, and submitted by publishers. The Booker Prize is open to works of writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

All selected authors receive £2,500 (approximately $2,900) and a special copy of their book. The winner – to be announced on October 17 – receives £50,000 (about $58,000).

This year’s Booker Prize organizers held Competition for book clubs across the UK. Among the six selected was a club in Glasgow where they bake cakes to match books and a club in Swansea that had been together for 40 years, said Gabe Wood, director of the Booker Prize Foundation. Each club will be assigned a short book to read and review on social media. Members of a club will have the opportunity to attend the booker prize winner announcement in October.