The Man Booker Prize brings volumes and volumes of excellent fiction to our attention every year. Here’s the 2016 winner, shortlist and longlist. Happy reading.
‘Writing has given me a life’
And this year’s Man Booker Prize winner is …
Paul Beatty (US) The Sellout (Oneworld)
I warmed to this writer who was somewhat overcome as he gave his acceptance speech, and when he got going he said,
I can’t tell you guys how long a journey this has been. I don’t want to be overdramatic and say that writing saved my life, or anything like that. Writing has given me a life.
This is the first time the prize has been won by an American. The reviews and comments report on a book with much humour but also irreverence and satire. Sounds like a good one to read. And these three novels from the shortlist have been recommended by friends and I may read and review them at a later date.
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy [to be reviewed here in November],
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, and
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.
Man Booker Prize is worth £50,000. A total of 155 novels were submitted, judged by a panel of five judges: Amanda Foreman (Chair); Jon Day; Abdulrazak Gurnah; David Harsent and Olivia Williams.
The 2016 shortlist of six novels:
Paul Beatty (US) The Sellout (Oneworld)
Deborah Levy (UK) Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton)
Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) His Bloody Project (Contraband)
Ottessa Moshfegh (US) Eileen (Jonathan Cape)
David Szalay (Canada-UK) All That Man Is (Jonathan Cape)
Madeleine Thien (Canada) Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta Books)
The Man Booker Prize 2016 longlist (Man Booker Dozen)
- Paul Beatty (US) The Sellout (Oneworld)
- J.M. Coetzee (South African-Australian) The Schooldays of Jesus (Harvill Secker)
- A.L. Kennedy (UK) Serious Sweet (Jonathan Cape)
- Deborah Levy (UK) Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton)
- Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) His Bloody Project (Contraband)
- Ian McGuire (UK) The North Water (Scribner UK)
- David Means (UK) Hystopia (Faber & Faber)
- Wyl Menmuir (UK) The Many (Salt)
- Ottessa Moshfegh (US) Eileen (Jonathan Cape)
- Virginia Reeves (US) Work Like Any Other (Scribner UK)
- Elizabeth Strout (US) My Name Is Lucy Barton (Viking)
- David Szalay (Canada-UK) All That Man Is (Jonathan Cape)
- Madeleine Thien (Canada) Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta Books)
Happy Reading!
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