2019 Booker Prize Longlist
First things first, it’s the end of an era but I’m so glad we don’t have to type Man Booker Prize anymore. The Man Group announced earlier this year that, after nearly two decades, they would no longer be sponsoring the prize, so it’s back to the traditional Booker Prize. And how did the judges do, bringing the prize into a new era? There’s already a lot of discussion over at the Goodreads group, so feel free to go join in here. The links below are for the U.S. editions at Amazon; several are not published yet, but each (how refreshing) have a publication date.
The Testaments
by Margaret Atwood
Purchase from Amazon.com
Night Boat to Tangier
by Kevin Barry
Purchase from Amazon.com
My Sister, the Serial Killer
by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Purchase from Amazon.com
Ducks, Newburyport
by Lucy Ellmann
Purchase from Amazon.com
Girl, Woman, Other
by Bernadine Evaristo
Purchase from Amazon.com
The Wall
by John Lanchester
Purchase from Amazon.com
The Man Who Saw Everything
by Deborah Levy
Purchase from Amazon.com
Lost Children Archive
by Valeria Luiselli
Purchase from Amazon.com
An Orchestra of Minorities
by Chigozie Obioma
Purchase from Amazon.com
Lanny
by Max Porter
Purchase from Amazon.com
Quichotte
by Salman Rushdie
Purchase from Amazon.com
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
by Elif Shafak
Purchase from Amazon.com
Frankissstein
by Jeanette Winterson
Purchase from Amazon.com
The Long list of the Booker Prize primarily seem to have been drawn from earlier works similar to what I found after finishing reading John Updike’s novel “Gertrude & Claudius” and earlier read “Rozencranz & Guildenstern are dead” by Tom Stoppard drawn from Shakespeare’s Hamlet who had drawn from Roman & Greek works and legends & myths therein. This time we have Salman Rashdie’s “Quichotte” drawing from Cervantes, Chigozi Obioma drawing from Homer’s Odyssey, Jeanette Winterson “Frankisstein” drawing from Mary Shelley “Frankestein”. The trend is interesting and worth digging deep to see how far it matches the original and how far it surpasses it, extends it or subverts it.