The Man Booker Prize shortlist has just been announced for 2017. The finalists include bestselling authors Mohsin Hamid, Paul Auster, George Saunders, and Ali Smith. In a surprising turn, two debut novelists have also made the list: Emily Friduland and Fiona Mozley. The winner will be announced on October 17 and will receive £50,000. All shortlisted finalists receive a £2,500 prize. You can see all the amazing books below.
Man Booker Prize Shortlist 2017
Exit West
Mohsin Hamid
Two young people meet in a country teetering on the brink of civil war. Nadia is sensual and fiercely independent, while Saeed is gentle and restrained. Just as they embark on a furtive love affair, they are soon forced to become much closer as the unrest in their city increases. Familiar streets are turned into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts. They hear whispers of doors – doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, they realize they have no other choice. They find a door and step through, leaving their homeland and old lives behind.
Buy on AmazonLincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders
President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. Despite predictions of a recovery, he dies and is laid to rest in Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth” the president says. From this seed of historical truth, George Saunders tells an unforgettable story of Willie Lincoln in purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance.
Buy on Amazon4321
Paul Auster
NPR labels Paul Auster’s 4321 as “a stunningly ambitious novel, and a pleasure to read”. This is a sweeping and surprising story about birthright, possibility, love and life itself. It tells the story of Archibald Isaac Ferguson and how his life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives.
Buy on AmazonHistory of Wolves
Emily Fridlund
Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in the woods of northern Minnesota. Isolated at home and an outcast at school, Linda is drawn to the enigmatic Lily and new history teacher Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is charged with possessing child pornography, his arrest deeply affects Linda as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong.
Buy on AmazonAutumn
Ali Smith
Autumn by Ali Smith’s is a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. It is the first in a Seasonal quartet of four stand-alone books, separate yet interconnected and cyclical like the seasons. A story about ageing, time, love and stories themselves.
Buy on AmazonElmet
Fiona Mozley
Elmet is the debut novel for Fiona Mozley set in Yorkshire. It tells an unforgettable tale about family, as well as a beautiful meditation on landscape.
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