The six shortlisted titles of the 2016 Man Booker Prize. The winner is to be announced October 25.
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Three of Six From Independent Publishers
The UK’s Man Booker Prize shortlist has been announced this morning (September 13) in London, and its six titles are:
- Paul Beatty (US) The Sellout (Oneworld)
- Deborah Levy (UK) Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton)
- Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) His Bloody Project (Contraband)
- Ottessa Moshfegh (US) Eileen (Jonathan Cape)
- David Szalay (Canada-UK) All That Man Is (Jonathan Cape)
- Madeleine Thien (Canada) Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta Books)
The list is notable for its inclusion of several independently published novels. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet, for example, is published by an imprint of Saraband. (Publishing Perspectives’ interview with Saraband publisher Sara Hunt is here.) The Contraband imprint is the house’s imprint for crime fiction, thrillers, mystery, and noir.
In addition, American author Paul Beatty’s The Sellout is published in the UK by Oneworld, an independent publisher. Canadian Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing is also the publication of an independent house, Granta.
The other three of six shortlisted books are from Penguin Random House.
Paul Beatty and Ottessa Moshfegh (Eileen) are US writers, allowed into consideration for the prize by the 2013 change that opened entries in English beyond the original limitations of Commonwealth, Ireland, and Zimbabwe. In the UK, the adjustment has been controversial, causing concern that the prize program could be overrun with American entries. As it happens this year, two of six are from the US.
As Katherine Cowdrey points out at The Bookseller, the author JM Coaetzee’s omission from the shortlist will surprise some observers. He’s a two-time Booker winner whose The Schooldays of Jesus was longlisted this year.
2016 Man Booker Prize shortlisted authors are, from left, top row: Paul Beatty, Deborah Levy, and Graeme Macrae Burnet. On the second row, from left: Ottessa Moshfegh, David Szalay, and Madeleine Thien.
The winner of the Man Booker Prize receives £50,000 (US$66,600) and, like all the shortlisted authors, a check for £2,500 (US$3,330) and a designer bound copy of their book.
The Man Booker Prize at Frankfurt Book Fair
The shortlist’s announcement has been preceded by the news that the award program is to be spotlighted three times on October 19 at Frankfurt Book Fair.
The year’s Man Booker winner is to be announced on the Tuesday following Buchmesse, October 25.
And on the 19th, the Fair’s opening day, the coveted literary award will be featured in three events, as follows:
- 11 to 11:45 a.m.: Booker Prize Foundation Literary Director Gaby Wood has a live conversation with one of the shortlisted authors in the Reading Tent on Buchmesse’s Agora.
- 12 to 12:45 p.m.: Wood joins a panel of specialists in a discussion, “The Winner Takes It All: How Literature Prizes Influence the Book Market” in the Business Club, Hall 4.0.
- 2:30 to 3 p.m.: Frankfurt Book Fair Director Juergen Boos and Wood talk about the history of the prize and its importance in international literary life on the Publishing Perspectives Stage, Hall 6.0.
From left, the judges of the 2016 Man Booker Prize are Amanda Foreman (chair), Jon Day, Abdulrazak Gurnah, David Harsent, and Olivia Williams.