The UK’s Booker Prize for Fiction Names Its 2024 Shortlist

In its 55th year, the United Kingdom’s Booker Prize for Fiction names its first shortlist to include a Dutch author’s work.

Image: Booker Prize Foundation

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

A Winner Is To Be Named on November 12

Announced this evening (September 16) at Somerset House’s Portico Rooms in London, the six-title Booker Prize for Fiction 2024 shortlist comprises the work of authors from five countries: Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

This year’s shortlist features the first Dutch book to be shortlisted as well as a first-time shortlisting for Pan Macmillan’s Mantle imprint. The two titles from Penguin Random House’s Jonathan Cape are that imprint’s first appearance on the shortlist since 2019.

The winner of this, the primary award in the Booker Foundation’s work, receives £50,000 (US$65,979). Each of the six authors eventually shortlisted is to receive £2,500 (US$3,300) and a specially bound edition of her or his book.

As we pointed out in our article on the Booker longlist, the original pool of entries numbered 156 books published between October 1 and September 30 of this year.

The Booker Prize is open to works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. For our worldwide readership, the Booker Prize for Fiction is not to be confused, of course, with the International Booker Prize, which is focused on translation.

Jurors for this year’s Booker Prize are Edmund de Waal; Yiyun Li; Justine Jordan; Sara Collins; and Nitin Sawhney.

Related article: The UK’s Booker Prize For Fiction: 2024 Longlist. Image: Booker Prize Foundation, Tom Pilston

In a news conference earlier today, the jury panel was asked if the mystery and value of a book doesn’t dim during the three readings required to get a title onto the longlist, then the shortlist, then into consideration for the win.

Collins answered, “That’s like saying, if you have your 100th conversation with a friend, you realize the friend is completely boring and useless as a person. I think the hallmark of a book that will endure is not just that it survives rereading, but demands it. Books, as we discussed, you know, during our meetings, are living things. …

“The short answer is, if a book doesn’t survive a third reading, it’s not going to win the Booker Prize.”

It was also noted by the briefing’s journalists that five of the six shortlisted authors are women, which the foundation says is the largest number of women on the shortlist in the prize’s 55-year history.

Jordon, on the jury panel, said, “It was a genuine surprise to us. We came up with a short list. We sat back and looked at the pile, and someone said, ‘Ha, there are five women there.’ So, you know, the first thing to say is that these books rose to the top on merit. They are tremendous books. But that was also a thing that made me feel like I could weep, you know, with joy. It was such a gratifying, surprising, thrilling moment to realize, you know, especially sort of coming off the back of the year with three Pauls, it’s time for the Paulettes and Paulinas.”

In mentioning “the three Pauls,” Jordon was referring to 2023 shortlisted authors Paul Harding, Paul Murray, and Paul Lynch, the last of whom was named the winner of the Booker for his Prophet Song from Oneworld.

The Booker Prize for Fiction 2024 Shortlist

Authors shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize for Fiction are, on the upper row from left, Percival Everett (image: Rich Barr); Samantha Harvey (image: Ula Soltys); and Rachel Kusher (image: Chloe Aftel). On the lower row from left are Anne Michaels (image Derek Shapton); Yael van der Wouden (image: Roosmarijn Broersen); and Charlotte Wood (image: Carly Earl)

The Booker Prize 2024 winner’s ceremony is set for November 12 at Old Billingsgate and is expected to be broadcast in a special edition of BBC Radio 4’s Front Row at 9:20 p.m., while being streamed to the Booker’s YouTube and Instagram channels.

Gaby Wood: ‘ Joy, Entertainment, Emotion, and Solace’

In complimenting this year’s jury, Booker Prize Foundation CEO Gaby Wood said, “I’ve said before what a wonderful group this year’s judges are, but it may be worth repeating: their collective inclinations as readers, their respect for each other, and their sense of solidarity with the writers have all made for a very rewarding year.”

Gaby Wood

“The six books on the shortlist bring a diversity of perspective, style and subject matter, from those that hold the reader close to those that take the reader for a spin.

“It’s a pleasure to bring new authors to the Booker library and welcome back those who have been here before, and I can’t wait for even more readers to immerse themselves in the worlds created by all of this year’s cohort.”

 A Booker Win’s Impact

As we reported in our longlist article, last year’s winner, Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, is reported by the Booker to have seen a 1,500-percent increase in sales in the week after it won.

In addition:

• Before its longlisting, Oneworld had sold 4,000 copies in hardback. More than 100,000 hardback copies now have been sold in the United Kingdom. It reached No. 3 in the Sunday Times bestseller list in the UK for hardback fiction.
• Internationally, in Ireland—in which the novel is set—it stayed at No. 1 across all books for several weeks after the win.
• Oneworld has printed 170,000 export trade paperbacks, with exceptionally strong sales in Ireland, Australia, and India. Grove Press in the United States has sold more than 90,000 hardbacks and ebooks in North America. Translation rights deals increased from two before Prophet Song’s longlisting to 13 before its win.
• In international translation and publication rights sales, a total 33 deals now have been secured, with a number of publishers buying Lynch’s complete backlist, as well.

While these are not newly updated figures, many in the book business would like to see similar figures reported by the Booker’s many brother and sister book and publishing awards programs, so that more was known about the marketplace effect of these honors that are routinely assumed to drive sales.

Since Publishing Perspectives began reporting on this and proposing last year that the industry would benefit from more awards’ disclosures of such information, the £25,000 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction have made commitments to gather and report on their own accolade’s market impact.

More from Publishing Perspectives on the Booker Prize for Fiction is here. More on the International Booker Prize is here, more from Publishing Perspectives on both Booker Prize programs is here. And more from us on the international industry’s many book and publishing awards programs overall is here.