Luck of the Irish! Booker Prize goes green with a third of nominated books on longlist coming from Ireland
- Ireland has produced the most ever prize nominees relative to population size
This year’s Booker Prize longlist has proved the luck of the Irish with a third of the nominated books coming from the country.
Sebastian Barry, Elaine Feeney, Paul Lynch and Paul Murray have all made the 13-strong longlist for this year’s prestigious literary prize – meaning that Ireland is the country which has produced the most ever nominees relative to population size.
There has now been a total of 37 Irish writers recognised by the Booker Prize, with previous winners including Anne Enright and Anna Burns.
Barry’s Old God’s Time, about a retired policeman who is forced to confront his past during a murder investigation, is his fifth Booker nomination.
This makes Barry, 68, just one of just 10 authors who have received five or more nominations across their careers, including Beryl Bainbridge, Ian McEwan and Margaret Atwood.
Writer Sebastian Barry, 68, just one of just 10 authors who have received five or more nominations across their careers
Elaine Feeney’s How to Build a Boat follows interweaving stories set in a small community
Irish writers Paul Lynch and Paul Murray are amongst those who have made the 13-strong longlist for this year’s prestigious literary prize
He was shortlisted for A Long Way Home in 2005 and The Secret Scripture in 2008, while 2011’s On Canaan’s Side and 2016’s Days Without End were longlisted.
Ms Feeney’s How to Build a Boat follows interweaving stories set in a small community while Lynch’s Prophet Song is a dystopian novel about a mother protecting her family as Ireland slides into totalitarianism.
Murray, who has previously been longlisted for Skippy Dies in 2010, has been nominated for his family drama The Bee Sting.
Past Irish writers who have won the Booker Prize include Ms Enright for 2007’s The Gathering and Ms Burns for 2018 novel Milkman.
After many years of male-dominated lists, Booker has continued its more recent penchant for an equal gender split with seven men nominated and six women.
This year’s judging panel – chaired by twice-shortlisted novelist Esi Edugyan – also opted to longlist four debut novelists over more established writers with 10 of the list first-time nominees.
Jonathan Escoffery, Siân Hughes, Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow and Chetna Maroo are all first-time novelists who have made the list.
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, 35, is the fifth Nigerian novelist to be nominated for her novel A Spell of Good Things and if she were to win she would be the second novelist from the country to do so, following Ben Okri.
BOOKER PRIZE LONGLIST 2023
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ ̀ – Nigerian
A Spell of Good Things (Canongate)
Sebastian Barry – Irish
Old God’s Time (Faber & Faber)
Sarah Bernstein – Canadian
Study for Obedience (Granta Books)
Jonathan Escoffery -American
If I Survive You (4th Estate)
Elaine Feeney – Irish
How to Build a Boat (Harvill Secker)
Paul Harding – American
This Other Eden (Hutchinson Heinemann)
Siân Hughes – British
Pearl (The Indigo Press)
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow – British
All the Little Bird-Hearts (Tinder Press)
Paul Lynch -Irish
Prophet Song (Oneworld)
Martin MacInnes – British
In Ascension (Atlantic Books)
Chetna Maroo – British
Western Lane (Picador)
Paul Murray -Irish
The Bee Sting (Hamish Hamilton)
Tan Twan Eng -Malaysian
The House of Doors (Canongate)
Over half of the longlisted books are from Independent publishers, with seven of the 13 not coming from the big publishing houses.
‘The list is defined by its freshness – by the irreverence of new voices, by the iconoclasm of established ones,’ said Ms Edugyan.
‘All 13 novels cast new light on what it means to exist in our time, and they do so in original and thrilling ways.’
The eclectic judging panel included Bridgerton actress Adjoa Andoh and comedian Robert Webb as well as poet Mary Jean Chan and author James Shapiro.
The Booker shortlist will be announced on September 21 at the National Portrait Gallery, with each shortlisted author receiving £2,500 each and a specially bound edition of their book.
The winner will be announced on November 26 at an award ceremony at Old Billingsgate. The winner receives £50,000 and a trophy designed by the late Jan Pieńkowski.
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