Shortlist for Booker Prize 2022: Imagined worlds that feel as our own
The annual award celebrates the best works of fiction from around the world that have been written in (or translated into) English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland
The 2022 Booker Prize shortlist has been announced on Wednesday, giving readers around the world a reason to rejoice. This year's shortlist is notable for having an even split between male and female writers, featuring authors from five different nationalities, as well as the oldest author ever to be shortlisted.
The finalists are: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, The Trees by Percival Everett, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka, Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout and Treacle Walker by Alan Garner.
The six books – by one Irish writer, one English, two Americans, a Zimbabwean and a writer from Sri Lanka – described by the chair of judges Neil MacGregor, "speak powerfully about important things."
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The judges were completely free to set their own criteria, but they were looking for authors who "created a world, an imagined world that we can feel as our own," added the chair. The six books, he said, "Set in different places at different times, they are all about events that in some measure happen everywhere, and concern us all." They're also "not too long," showing "great editing," he joked.
An energetic and exhilarating joyride, Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo is the story of an uprising, told by a vivid chorus of animal voices.
"Everything about The Trees is relevant to today's world. Everett looks at race in America with an unblinking eye, asking what it is to be haunted by history, and what it could or should mean to rise up in search of justice," said the jury board.
And Seven Moons is "A Sri Lankan whodunnit and a race against time, and is full of ghosts, gags and a deep humanity," commented the judges.
A tender tale of hope and quiet heroism, Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These is both a celebration of compassion and a stern rebuke of the sins committed in the name of religion.
In her Oh William! Elizabeth Strout Recalls her relationship with her first husband and the lives they built with other people. Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a tender, complex, decades-long partnership.
Finally, related in around 15,000 words, the judges described Garner's Treacle Walker as a "mysterious, beautifully written and affecting glimpse into the deep work of being human," adding that it reduced some of the jury members to tears.
The long and shortlists were selected from 169 novels published between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022 and submitted by publishers. All the shortlisted authors receive £2,500 (Around Tk three lakhs) and a specially bound edition of their book.
First awarded in 1969, The annual award celebrates the best works of fiction from around the world that have been written in (or translated into) English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner receives £50,000 and can expect international recognition and a dramatic increase in global book sales.
Last year, Damon Galgut's novel The Promise, which dissects the downfall of a white South African family, was named the winner. Previous winners include Salman Rushdie, VS Naipaul, Hilary Mantel, Bernadine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood.
The 2022 winner will be announced on 17 October in a ceremony held at the Roundhouse. For the first time since 2019, the final will be held entirely in person.
