The Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious accolades in the literary world. Having celebrated the transformative and transportive power of storytelling for over five decades now, the Booker Prize is an annual literary award that recognises the best long-form fiction written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland over the past year. The 2024 Booker Prize is eligible for works published between the 1st of October 2023 and the 30th of September 2024.
The 2024 Booker Prize was awarded to Orbital by Samantha Harvey. Edmund de Waal, the chair of the judges, describes Orbital as “a novel propelled by the beauty of sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets. Everyone and no one is the subject, as six astronauts in the International Space Station circle the Earth observing the passages of weather across the fragility of borders and time zones.” He adds that the panel’s “unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition.”
Harvey is the first female author to win the Booker Prize in five years, with Orbital the first book set in space to win the award. Even prior to its win, Orbital was the top-selling book on the shortlist of six finalists and has sold more copies than the past three Booker Prize winners combined.
This year marks the first time in the Booker Prize’s 55-year history that the shortlist included five female authors. “When it comes to setting, the six novels on this year’s shortlist are spread far and wide,” notes the official announcement, “from above the earth to a cave network beneath the French countryside, from the battlefields of the First World War to a spiritual retreat in rural Australia, from America’s Deep South in the 19th century to a remote Dutch house in the early 1960s.”
“The books explore big and timely issues: the ways in which we hide our real selves from those around us, and the contested nature of truth; the way traumatic histories—personal and collective—shape and restrict us, and follow us however far we go.”
According to the judges, the shortlisted novels are united by their exploration of the gravitational pull of home and family, as well as the essential human need to belong in a world that makes many feel lost and unwelcome.
2024 Booker Prize Shortlist
Herewith, a guide to the six shortlisted books for the 2024 Booker Prize.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (winner)
Taking place over a period of 24 hours, Orbital follows the lives of six astronauts on the International Space Station. Together, they circle earth sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through time zones and seasons over the span of a single day. Despite being isolated from earth, they continue to grapple with existentialism and identity; questioning what life is without earth and what earth is without humanity from a unique vantage point.
James by Percival Everett
A skillful reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of an enslaved runaway man, James follows Jim and Huck Finn on a journey along the Mississippi River towards the free states. James explores themes of identity, heritage, and self-discovery, with Everett stating that he viewed his novel not as a correction of Mark Twain’s, but as part of a dialogue with it. The judges deemed James a “masterful, revisionist work that immerses the reader in the brutality of slavery, juxtaposed with a movingly persistent humanity.”
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
A poignant story of grief, female friendship, and healing, Stone Yard Devotional follows a burnt out middle-aged woman who uproots her life in Sydney after a personal tragedy to return to her hometown in rural New South Wales and seek solace and refuge in a convent. Set in an intentionally claustrophobic environment, the protagonist’s desired respite in seclusion is interrupted by a plague of mice and rats, the return of the remains of a murdered sister, and the reappearance of a former schoolmate. In Stone Yard Devotional, Australian author Charlotte Wood weaves a contemplative and meditative tale, with its skillful prose inviting the reader along on an immersive journey.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
A electrifying novel, Creation Lake follows American spy Sadie Smith who infiltrates an environmental activist group in rural France. Replete with radical leftists and utopianists and topped off with a reclusive guru, Kushner’s witty prose and adroit worldbuilding result in a page-turned that deftly explores how individuals confront and defy ideological conventions.
Held by Anne Michaels
Spanning four generations and beginning in the trenches of World War I, Held is a poetic meditation on love and loss that questions the very concept of memory. Fragmented in its construction, it’s held together through theme and human relationships rather than chronology, exploring how interpersonal connections can transcend time and space.
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
A tale of secrets and twisted desire, The Safekeep follows Isabel, a Dutch woman living alone in rural Overijssel—a rural town in the Netherlands—after World War II until the arrival of her brother and his girlfriend Eva who upend her orderly life. The obsessive relationship between the two women becomes a vehicle to explore the expropriation and theft of Jewish property during World War II. Yael van der Wouden’s tight prose and nuanced characters make for a novel that’s both thrilling and engrossing while shedding light on a dark chapter of Dutch history.
What is the Booker Prize?
Taking place in November, the Booker Prize is an annual literary award open to longform fiction books written in English and published in the UK or Ireland over the past year. The longlist comprises 12 or 13 books (the latter being known as the ‘Booker Dozen’), from which a shortlist of six books is selected. Publishers are permitted to submit books based on their inclusion in longlists over the preceding five years; publishers with no longlistings are eligible for one submission while those with three or more submissions are able to submit three works.
The Booker Prize has previously been known as the Man Booker Prize (2002 to 2018) when it was sponsored by the Man Group. Prior to that, it was called the Booker Prize (pre-2002).
What is the prize for winning the Booker Prize?
The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, while all six shortlisted authors receive £2500.
Who can enter the Booker Prize?
Authors with work written in English and published in the UK or Ireland between the 1st of October 2023 and the 30th of September 2024 can enter the 2024 Booker Prize. Authors can enter irrespective of citizenship or nationality.
Who won the 2023 Booker Prize?
The 2023 Booker Prize was won by Irish author Paul Lynch for his novel Prophet Song, a dystopian novel that centres on mother of four Elish Stack, who struggles to save her family as the Republic of Ireland descends into a totalitarian regime.
Words by T. Angel
