The longlist for the 2023 Booker Prize was announced on August 1. Among the 13 authors to make the list, 10, including four debut novelists, were longlisted for the first time, and four are from Ireland. Only two Americans made the list this year, after six were longlisted last year.
"The list is defined by its freshness—by the irreverence of new voices, by the iconoclasm of established ones," jury chair Esi Edugyan said in a statement.
The books were chosen from a list of 163 publisher-submitted titles written in English and published in the U.K. or Ireland between October 1 of last year and September 30 of this year. The titles, with their U.K. publishers listed, are as follows:
- A Spell of Good Things (Canongate) by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ ̀(Nigerian)
- Old God's Time (Faber & Faber) by Sebastian Barry (Irish)
- Study for Obedience (Granta Books) by Sarah Bernstein (Canadian)
- If I Survive You (4th Estate) by Jonathan Escoffery (American)
- How to Build a Boat (Harvill Secker) by Elaine Feeney (Irish)
- This Other Eden (Hutchinson Heinemann) by Paul Harding (American)
- Pearl (The Indigo Press) by Siân Hughes (British)
- All the Little Bird-Hearts (Tinder Press) by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow (British)
- Prophet Song (Oneworld) by Paul Lynch (Irish)
- In Ascension (Atlantic Books) by Martin MacInnes (British)
- Western Lane (Picador) by Chetna Maroo (British)
- The Bee Sting (Hamish Hamilton) by Paul Murray (Irish)
- The House of Doors (Canongate) by Tan Twan Eng (Malaysian)
The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 21, with the winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced at an event at Old Billingsgate, London, on November 26.
