LONDON (AP) — Indian creator Kiran Desai, who received the Booker Prize after which didn’t publish a novel for nearly 20 years, is up for the award once more together with her long-awaited follow-up.
“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” the 677-page story of two younger Indians making their means in the US, is one among 13 books introduced Tuesday as semifinalists for the celebrated 50,000-pound ($67,000) prize. The contenders embody authors from 9 nations on 4 continents.
It’s Desai’s first novel since “The Inheritance of Loss,” which received the Booker in 2006.
Two earlier finalists are up for the prize once more: U.Okay. author Andrew Miller, for “The Land in Winter,” and Hungarian-British author David Szalay for “Flesh.”
Tash Aw, who has been a semifinalist twice earlier than, would be the first Malaysian winner if he takes the prize for “The South.”
5 of the contenders are from Britain: Miller, Szalay, Natasha Brown (“Universality”), Jonathan Buckley (“One Boat”) and Benjamin Wooden (“Seascraper”).
Books by U.S. writers within the operating embody Susan Choi’s “Flashlight,” Katie Kitamura’s “Audition” and Ben Markovits’ “The Rest of Our Lives.”
Additionally on the record are “Misinterpretation” by Albanian-American Ledia Xhoga, “Love Forms” by Trinidad’s Claire Adam, and “Endling,” a debut novel by Canadian-Ukrainian opera librettist Maria Reva.
“The 13 longlisted novels bring the reader to Hungary, Albania, the north of England, Malaysia, Ukraine, Korea, London, New York, Trinidad and Greece, India and the West Country,” mentioned Irish novelist Roddy Doyle, chair of a five-member judging panel that features actor Sarah Jessica Parker.
“All, somehow, examine identity, individual or national, and all, I think, are gripping and excellent,” he mentioned.
Based in 1969, the Booker Prize has a repute for remodeling writers’ careers and is open to novels from any nation printed within the U.Okay. and Eire. Final 12 months’s winner was “Orbital,” by British author Samantha Harvey.
An inventory of six finalists might be introduced Sept. 23, and this 12 months’s winner might be topped on Nov. 10 at a ceremony in London.
