Six novels by U.S. authors, including Percival Everett, Rachel Kushner and Richard Powers, are among the 13 titles nominated for this year’s Booker Prize, the award’s organizers announced on Tuesday.
Everett’s book “James” is a retelling of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of an enslaved runaway; Kushner’s “Creation Lake,” is a forthcoming novel about a spy who infiltrates an environmental activist group; and Powers’ “Playground,” another forthcoming title, imagines a plan to send floating cities into the Pacific Ocean.
The Booker Prize is one of the most coveted literary awards, given each year to a novel written in English and published in Britain or Ireland. Recent winners include Margaret Atwood’s “The Testaments” and Douglas Stuart’s “Shuggie Bain.” Last year’s winner was “Prophet Song,” a novel by Paul Lynch set in a near-future Ireland torn apart by civil war.
Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize was for most of its life only open to books by writers from Britain, Ireland, the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe, but in 2014, organizers expanded its eligibility criteria to any work written in English. Ever since, British literary figures have regularly complained about the prize’s dominance by American authors.
Tuesday’s announcement could reignite those concerns, especially because only two novels by British authors have been nominated: Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital,” a day-in-the-life story of six astronauts circling Earth on a space station; and Sarah Perry’s “Enlightenment,” about unrequited love in an English town.
As well as the books by Everett, Kushner and Powers, the three other American novels nominated are Rita Bullwinkel’s “Headshot,” set in a women’s boxing tournament; Claire Messud’s “This Strange Eventful History,” a family saga that explores France’s colonial history; and “Wandering Stars,” by Tommy Orange, which is about the impact of colonization on a Native American family. Orange is the Booker Prize’s first ever Native American nominee.
The nominated titles vary wildly in subject matter and tone — but Edmund de Waal, chair of this year’s judges, said in a news release that the 13 books all had a similar emotional impact. “These are not books ‘about issues,’” he said. “They are works of fiction that inhabit ideas by making us care deeply about people and their predicaments.”
“The precarity of lives runs through our longlist like quicksilver,” de Waal added.
The judges will now cut the list down to a six-book shortlist, scheduled to be announced on Sep. 16. The winning title will be revealed during a ceremony in London on Nov. 12. — NYT
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