Booker Prize longlist 2025: ‘alive with great characters and narrative surprises' says chair of judges Roddy Doyle

Irish Times

3 days ago

Kiran Desai, the Indian author who won the
Booker Prize
in 2006 with The Inheritance of Loss, has been longlisted again with The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, the first novel she has written since and, at 667 pages, the longest book on the list. Should she win, she would become the fifth double winner in the prize's 56-year history. Her mother Anita Desai was also shortlisted for the Booker three times.
Nine of this year's 13 authors appear on the prestigious £50,000 prize longlist for the first time, alongside Malaysian author Tash Aw, who is longlisted for a third time, and past shortlistees Andrew Miller and David Szalay.
Although there are no Irish-born authors on the longlist, Trinidad-Irish writer Claire Adam, whose mother is from
Cork
and who has spent many summers there, features with Love Forms. She won the Desmond Elliott Prize, the McKitterick Prize and the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award for her debut,
Golden Child
.
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Claire Adam on childhood summers in Ireland: 'My grandmother from Skibbereen lived to 108'
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The Booker Prize 2025 longlist
Love Forms by Claire Adam
The South by Tash Aw
Universality by Natasha Brown
One Boat by Jonathan Buckley
Flashlight by Susan Choi
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Audition by Katie Kitamura
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
Endling by Maria Reva
Flesh by David Szalay
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga
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Love Forms by Claire Adam: A novel of cumulative force
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Roddy Doyle
, chair of this year's judges and a former Booker Prize winner with Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha in 1993, said the novels on this year's list were 'alive with great characters and narrative surprises', which 'examine the past and poke at our shaky present'.
He said he and his fellow judges – longlisted novelists Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
and Kiley Reid; actor and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker; and critic Chris Power – had spent seven months reading 153 books before deciding on their selection.
'There were so many contenders, so many excellent books, saying goodbye to some of them felt personal, almost cruel.
'The 13 longlisted novels bring the reader to Hungary, Albania, the north of England, Malaysia, Ukraine, Korea, London, New York, Trinidad and Greece, India and the West Country. (Forgive the list, but I used to teach geography.) There are short novels and some very long ones. There are novels that experiment with form and others that do so less obviously. All, somehow, examine identity, individual or national, and all, I think, are gripping and excellent.'
Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, praised a longlist that championed global perspectives.
'The stories are set all over the world, and their authors, all of them writing in English, come from many different places too. There was an Indian writer, a Malaysian, a Trinidadian, an Albanian-American, a Hungarian-Briton and a Canadian-Ukrainian ... It's the highest number of different nationalities we've seen on a Booker Prize longlist for a decade – yet British writers are strongly represented too.
'While [the list] includes historical epics, brilliant formal experiments and a compact satire, many of the novels speak to the reader in an unadorned, confiding voice. This intimate effect, so difficult to achieve, was immediately appreciated by the judges, who are as alive to unshowy skills as they are to more virtuosic ones.'
The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 23rd and the winner will be revealed on November 10th.
What the judges said
Love Forms by Claire Adam
'The divorced Trinidadian mother of two adult men is consumed by the loss of her daughter. Beautifully low-pitched, it reads like a hushed conversation overheard in the next room.'
The South by Tash Aw
'To call
The South
a coming-of-age novel nearly misses its expanse. Set in 1990s Malaysia, it's a book about heritage, and the relationship between one family and the land.'
Universality by Natasha Brown
'A bold, memorable and entertaining satire, it reveals the contradictions of a society shaped by entrenched systems of economic, political and media control.'
One Boat by Jonathan Buckley
'A woman returns to a coastal town in Greece she first visited when her mother died. A novel of quiet brilliance, it raises questions about grief, obsession and human connectivity.'
Flashlight by Susan Choi
'Deftly criss-crossing decades and continents – from North Korea to America – this is a riveting exploration of identity, hidden truths, race, and national belonging.'
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
'Vast and immersive, this novel about a pair of young Indians in America enfolds a magical realist fable within a social novel within a love story. No detail, large or small, escapes Desai's attention.'
Audition by Katie Kitamura
'An actress meets a man in a Manhattan restaurant who claims to be her son. This tense scenario established, the narrative makes a radical pivot that left us perplexed and thrilled.'
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
'Twelve years after his wife's affair, Tom drops his daughter off at college – and keeps driving. A satisfying road trip full of strangers, friends and self-discovery, and a novel of sincerity and precision.'
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
'In Britain's coldest winter, two women forge a friendship in the countryside. In beautifully atmospheric prose, Miller brings suspense to a seemingly inconsequential chapter in history.'
Endling
by Maria Reva
'Set in Ukraine as Putin invades,
Endling
features three women and an endangered snail travelling together in a mobile lab. Structurally wild and playful, it is also heart-rending and angry.'
Flesh
by David Szalay
'Travelling from Hungary to Iraq to London, and using only the sparest of prose, this hypnotically tense and compelling book becomes an astonishingly moving portrait of a man's life.'
Seascraper
by Benjamin Wood
'What seems to be a beautifully described account of a working day in an English coastal town becomes a book about dreams, an exploration of class and – stunningly – a love story.'
Misinterpretation
by Ledia Xhoga
'The story of a translator saddled between her Albanian past and her New York present, it blurs the distinction between help and harm. We found it propulsive and unsettling.'