The Booker Prize Shortlist 2022
The Booker Prize 2022 shortlist has been announced!
The shortlist includes the shortest book and oldest author ever to be nominated, three second novels, authors from five countries and four continents, three independent publishers and several titles inspired by real events.
The winner will be announced at the Roundhouse in London on October 17.
The Shortlist
Glory
This energetic and exhilarating joyride from NoViolet Bulawayo is the story of an uprising, told by a vivid chorus of animal voices that help us see our human world more clearly.
Small Things Like These
Claire Keegan’s tender tale of hope and quiet heroism is both a celebration of compassion and a stern rebuke of the sins committed in the name of religion.
Treacle Walker
This latest fiction from a remarkable and enduring talent brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of the world around him.
By Alan Garner
The Trees
A violent history refuses to be buried in Percival Everett’s striking novel, which combines an unnerving murder mystery with a powerful condemnation of racism and police violence.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
Shehan Karunatilaka’s rip-roaring epic is a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war.
Oh William!
Bestselling author Elizabeth Strout returns to her beloved heroine Lucy Barton in a luminous novel about love, loss, and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any time.
Highlights from this year’s shortlist
- The six books are ‘set in different places at different times [and] are all about events that in some measure happen everywhere, and concern us all’, according to Chair of judges Neil MacGregor
- The six authors represent five different nationalities and four continents, with an equal split of men and women on the list
- The majority of the shortlist is inspired by real events, from the Sri Lankan civil war and the fall of Robert Mugabe to Ireland’s Magdalene laundries scandal and the murder of Emmett Till in the US
- It features the oldest author ever to be shortlisted: Alan Garner will celebrate his 88th birthday on the night of the winner ceremony
- At 116 pages, Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is the shortest book recognised in the prize’s history – although Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker contains fewer words
- Half of the list is published by independent publishers, including first time appearances from Influx Press and Sort of Books
Cultural historian, writer and broadcaster Neil MacGregor chairs the panel and is joined by academic and broadcaster Shahidha Bari; historian Helen Castor; novelist and critic M. John Harrison; and novelist, poet and professor Alain Mabanckou.