The Booker Prize 2025 shortlist, announced Tuesday, highlights a selection of authors who have spent decades honing their craft. According to a statement by the prize, this year’s list for the world’s most prestigious award for a single work of fiction features five out of six authors with more than five books to their name, and two with more than 10. These seasoned writers, representing four nationalities across three continents, are celebrated for their command of language and their profound human insights.
Booker Prize 2025 Chair of Judges, Roddy Doyle, a Booker winner himself from 1993, spoke to the exceptional quality of the selected works. “The six [novels] have, I think, two big things in common,” Doyle stated. “Their authors are in total command of their own store of English, their own rhythm, their own expertise; they have each crafted a novel that no one else could have written. And all of the books, in six different and very fresh ways, find their stories in the examination of the individual trying to live with—to love, to seek attention from, to cope with, to understand, to keep at bay, to tolerate, to escape from—other people.”
Doyle added that this focus on interpersonal relationships makes the books “brilliantly written and brilliantly human.”
The list includes both familiar faces and debut nominees. Kiran Desai, a 2006 Booker winner, returns with her new novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, which took nearly 20 years to write. Should she win, she would join an elite group of five authors who have won the prize twice in its 56-year history. Also making a return are Andrew Miller (The Land in Winter) and David Szalay (Flesh), both past shortlistees.
Making their Booker shortlist debuts are three critically acclaimed and award-winning authors: Susan Choi (Flashlight), Ben Markovits (The Rest of Our Lives), and Katie Kitamura (Audition).
The shortlisted books, which span from under 200 pages to almost 700, explore themes of family ties and belonging. Their characters navigate complex domestic situations, often far from their homes, taking readers on journeys from Hungary to Japan, and from Italy to the US.
The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced on Monday, November 10 at a ceremony in London.
