2019 Booker Prize longlist announced – including two African authors

The 2019 Booker Prize longlist has been announced—described by the judges as ‘bold’, ‘lyrical’, ‘very diverse’ and ‘quite wild’.

First awarded in 1969, the £50,000 prize is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

After two years in which no African authors were chosen for the longlist, this year’s selection is a welcome change. Two Nigerian authors are included, Oyinkan Braithwaite, for My Sister, The Serial Killer, and Chigozie Obioma, for An Orchestra of Minorities, as is Bernardine Evaristo, whose work explores the African diaspora and her Nigerian heritage.

Braithwaite’s My Sister, The Serial Killer is the only debut novel to be nominated this year, and at 31 she is also the youngest author on the list.

Both Braithwaite and Obioma will be in South Africa later this year for the Open Book Festival.

2019 Booker Prize longlist, or Booker ‘Dozen’

Author (country/territory), title (imprint)

Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)
Kevin Barry (Ireland), Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate Books)
Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK/Nigeria), My Sister, The Serial Killer (Atlantic Books)
Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)
Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton)
John Lanchester (UK), The Wall (Faber & Faber)
Deborah Levy (UK), The Man Who Saw Everything (Hamish Hamilton)
Valeria Luiselli (Mexico/Italy), Lost Children Archive (4th Estate)
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown)
Max Porter (UK), Lanny (Faber & Faber)
Salman Rushdie (UK/India), Quichotte (Jonathan Cape)
Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking)
Jeanette Winterson (UK), Frankissstein (Jonathan Cape)