The longlist for the 2021 Booker Prize, one of literature's most prestigious awards, has just been announced and includes a wide range of exciting fiction from authors around the world. Chair of the judges' committee, Maya Jasanoff, described the common thread running through the diverse works: "We find is that what marks all of these books is a really distinctive voice. We'll find that the voice can vary a lot. Some of them are very lyrical. Some of them are very spare. But there's a kind of deliberate quality to and attention to the writing in each of these books that makes them really distinct and special." 

The shortlist will be announced on September 14 and the winner revealed on November 3. In the meantime, we invite you to explore these books below—good luck choosing which one(s) to read!

 

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam

After learning of his grandmother’s caretaker’s supposedly accidental death after falling down a well, Krishan makes the journey from Columbo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral in this fictional account of Sri Lanka’s 30-year civil war.

 

 

 

 

Second Place by Rachel Cusk

Examining the possibility that art can both save and destroy us, this fable of human destiny and decline follows a woman as she invites a famed artist to her home in hopes that his vision will penetrate the mystery of her life and surroundings.

 

 

 

 

The Promise by Damon Galgut

Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life's unfulfilled promises; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt. Reunited by four funerals over three decades, the dwindling family reflects the atmosphere of its country ' an atmosphere of resentment, renewal, and'ultimately'hope. 

 

 

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son, hire the brothers, hoping to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox. But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community. 

 

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Waiting to be chosen by a customer, an Artificial Friend programmed with high perception observes the activities of shoppers while exploring fundamental questions about what it means to love.

 

 

 

 

A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson

A novel told through three distinct points of view—a woman desperately hoping for the return of her rebellious teenage sister, who has been missing for weeks, her hospitalized neighbor, and the newly arrived stranger living in her neighbor's house—uncovers the layers of grief, remorse, and love that connect families, both the ones people are born into and the ones they choose.

 

 

 

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

Elevated to prominence for her social-media posts, a woman begins suffering from existential anxieties while learning the languages, customs and fears of her fans throughout the world, before an urgent text from home transforms her virtual perspectives.

 

 

 

 

China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

In 1929 rural Punjab, Mehar and her new sisters-in-law are locked at work in the family’s “china room,” while trying to figure out which of three brothers is her new husband, setting off events that impact a descendent in 1999.

 

 

 

 

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

A century after daredevil female aviator Marian Graves’s disappearance in Antarctica, actress Hadley Baxter is cast to play her and immerses herself in the role as their fates—and their dreams—become intertwined.

 

 

 

 

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford

Ingenious and profound, this novel set in 1944 London imagines the lives of five souls who perished during a visit to a local store, illuminating the shapes of experience, the extraordinariness of the ordinary, the mysteries of memory and expectation, and the preciousness of life.

 

 

 

 

Books on the longlist which are not yet in the NYPL collection:

• An Island by Karen Jennings
• The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
• Bewilderment by Richard Powers

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Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.