The longlist for the 2021 Booker Prize is announced on Tuesday 27 July 2021. The Booker Prize for Fiction is open to works by writers of any nationality, written in English from anywhere in the world and published in the UK or Ireland.
The 13 books on this year’s longlist were chosen by the 2021 judging panel: historian Maya Jasanoff (chair); writer and editor Horatia Harrod; actor Natascha McElhone; twice Booker-shortlisted novelist and professor Chigozie Obioma; and writer and former Archbishop Rowan Williams. The list was chosen from 158 novels published in the UK or Ireland between 1 October 2020 and 30 September 2021. South Africa’s Damon Galgut and Karen Jennings along with Somali/British writer Nadifa Mohamed are among the 13 on the list. Galgut’s nomination is for The Promise that features South Africa’s history of apartheid, peace and reconciliation. This is his third time on the longlist. Jennings’ novel, An Island, tells the story of a friendship. Mohammed’s work The Fortune Men is a historical novel focussing on the true story of discrimination against a Somali man in Wales in the 1950s. This year’s shortlist of six novels will be announced on 14 September with those authors each receiving £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.
The winning novel receives £50,000 and will be announced on 3 November at an award ceremony held in partnership with the BBC at Broadcasting House’s Radio Theatre.
