The shortlist for the 2019 Booker Prize has been revealed!
The Booker Prize is the leading literary award given to what the judges believe to be the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. Thirteen books were selected for the longlist in July, narrowed to just six for the shortlist. The winner will be announced October 14, 2019.
The shortlist was announced by Chair of Judges Peter Florence this morning, according to The Bookseller. The nominees are the following:
- Testaments by Margaret Atwood
- Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
- Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman
- 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
- An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma
When speaking about the nominees, Florence added:
“The common thread is our admiration for the extraordinary ambition of each of these books. There is an abundance of humour, of political and cultural engagement, of stylistic daring and astonishing beauty of language. Like all great literature, these books teem with life, with a profound and celebratory humanity. We have a shortlist of six extraordinary books and we could make a case for each of them as winner, but I want to toast all of them as ‘winners’. Anyone who reads all six of these books would be enriched and delighted, would be awe-struck by the power of story, and encouraged by what literature can do to set our imaginations free.”
