The 2022 Booker Prize short list has been announced : NPR
Booker Prize Foundation
The shortlist of novels for this year’s Booker Prize has been announced. A panel of judges selected a long list of 13 books for the following six titles:
glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
Little things like this via Claire Keegan
The trees via Percival Everett
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Oh William! via Elizabeth Strout
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
Announcing the shortlist directly from the Serpentine Pavilion in London, Booker Prize president Neil MacGregor said the judges were “completely free to make their own criteria” but that they were looking for authors who had “created” out a world, an imaginary world that we can perceive. our own.” In all six books, he says, “Something important happens to an individual or to a society. They realize what they are and what they can become.”
They’re also “not too long,” showing “great editing,” he joked.
The other judges were scholar and broadcaster Shahidha Bari; historian Helen Castor; novelist and critic M. John Harrison; and novelist, poet and professor Alain Mabanckou.
The long and short list was selected from 169 novels published between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2022, and submitted by publishers. The Booker Prize is open to works by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.
All shortlisted authors receive £2,500 (nearly $2,900) and a special edition of their book. The winner – to be announced on October 17 – receives £50,000 (nearly $58k).
This year the organizers of the Booker Prize a competition for book clubs across the UK. Gaby Wood, director of the Booker Prize Foundation, says that among the six chosen there is a club in Glasgow where they bake cakes to match the books and a club in Swansea that has met for 40 years. Each club will be assigned one of the books on a curated list for reading and social media review. Members of a club will win the opportunity to attend the announcement of the Booker Prize winners in October.