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Five of the six authors are women — the largest number in the
prize's 55-year history.
Everett, a 2022 Booker finalist for “The Trees,” is again
nominated for “James,” which reimagines Mark Twain’s
“Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of its main Black
character, the enslaved man Jim.
Kushner, another former Booker finalist with her bestseller “The
Mars Room,” is a contender again with spy story “Creation Lake.”
The other finalists vying for the 50,000 pound ($64,000) award
are Britain's Samantha Harvey, for “Orbital"; Canada's Anne
Michaels for “Held"; Australia's Charlotte Wood for “Stone Yard
Devotional"; and Yael van der Wouden — the first Dutch author to
be shortlisted for the Booker — for her debut, “The Safekeep.”
Organizers said the stories transport readers from World War I
battlefields to America's Deep South in the 19th century to the
International Space Station.
“Here is storytelling in which people confront the world in all
its instability and complexity. The fault lines of our times are
here,” said author Edmund de Waal, who chairs this year's
five-member judging panel. “They are books that made us want to
keep on reading, to ring up friends and tell them about them.”
The winner will be announced on Nov. 12 at a ceremony in London.
Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize celebrates the best fiction
and is open to novels from any country published in the U.K. and
Ireland.
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