Poets & Writers Theater

“When I first saw him, I knew then: This was the master for me.” Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize–winning novel, The White Tiger, has been adapted into a Netflix film directed by Ramin Bahrani. Starring Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Rajkummar Rao, the film follows an ambitious driver in India who escapes poverty through deceptive acts.

“I sincerely believe this is a life-affirming book and it is a novel that celebrates diversity, inclusion…and friendships.” Elif Shafak speaks about her writing process and the inspiration behind her latest novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking, 2019), which is shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize.

“I’m still in awe of the range of stories and voices that they bring and the worlds that they open up. It’s an incredibly eclectic group.” In this video, Afua Hirsch and fellow members of the judging panel talk about the six books on the 2019 Booker Prize shortlist, which include The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Quichotte by Salman Rushdie, and Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann.

“Each book has an individual, singular voice…some are very interior, some are very extravagant,” says Xiaolu Guo, one of the judges for the 2019 Booker Prize, about the thirteen titles nominated for the longlist of the prize. The “Booker Dozen” includes The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli, An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma, and Lanny by Max Porter. 

“I’m very skeptical of the way in which books are marketed as commodities, almost like accessories which people can fill their homes with,” says Sally Rooney in this interview at the 2018 Louisiana Literature festival in Denmark. Rooney’s second novel, Normal People (Hogarth, 2019), was longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize and will be adapted into a television series.

“In a lot of African storytelling, unlike storytelling in the West, it’s the trickster who is telling the story, so you already know you can’t quite believe it.” On Late Night With Seth Meyers, Marlon James speaks about the influences behind his new novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Riverhead Books, 2019), the first title of his Dark Star Trilogy, ranging from the television series The Affair and George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. A profile of James by Kima Jones appears in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I think there’s also in the book a sort of collective mind-set, which is seen as more important than the individual identity or autonomy.” Anna Burns talks about her third novel, Milkman (Faber & Faber, 2017), for which she won the 2018 Man Booker Prize, making her the award’s first Northern Irish honoree.

“I’m always sort of looking for the hidden story or the thing that’s been forgotten.” Esi Edugyan speaks about the influence that libraries have had on her work as a writer for Canadian Heritage’s Portraits 150 series. Edugyan’s third novel, Washington Black (Serpent’s Tail, 2018), is shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize.

“The lyric is a kind of small gift, and the fiction is more like putting on a theatrical production.” In this Louisiana Channel interview, Michael Ondaatje speaks about the differences in writing a poem versus a novel, his mentors, and what he discovers through the research that goes into his novels. Ondaatje recently won the Golden Man Booker Prize for The English Patient, and his novel Warlight (Jonathan Cape, 2018) is longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize.

The Sisters Brothers (Ecco, 2011), Patrick deWitt’s Booker-nominated picaresque western novel about two assassin brothers during the California Gold Rush, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Jacques Audiard, the film stars Riz Ahmed, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rutger Hauer, Carol Kane, Joaquin Phoenix, and John C. Reilly.

“This tonight is culture, it’s international culture, it’s compassionate culture, it’s activist culture—it’s a room full of believers…” In this video, George Saunders accepts the 2017 Man Booker Prize for his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo (Bloomsbury, 2017). Saunders is the second American in a row to win the award.

“Almost every great novelist has got a comedian in him, in her, somewhere or other.” Man Booker Prize–winning author Howard Jacobson speaks about the necessity of failure and comedy in literature, and what makes a novel funny.

“Language is tough. Using the right words is so important to me.” Paul Beatty, author of the Man Booker Prize–winning novel, The Sellout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), speaks about the labor of writing and his advice to students on Late Night With Seth Meyers.

In this book trailer, Richard Flanagan, winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize, narrates a selection from his forthcoming novel, First Person, to be published by Knopf in 2018. Written in the style of a memoir, the novel follows a struggling writer who has six weeks to ghostwrite the memoir of a con artist.

At the Wheeler Centre, Hanya Yanagihara speaks about how her novel A Little Life (Doubleday, 2015) is “willfully out of step” with contemporary literature. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and National Book Award in 2015, the novel has been optioned by producer Scott Rudin as a limited series.

“If you look at the Greek myths, they’re always about unhappy families; Aristotle told us that politics starts in the family—I think that’s true.” Deborah Levy, whose most recent novel, Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton, 2016), is shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, talks about the elements of family in Hamlet that have always haunted her. This video is part of the Hay Festival: Talking About Shakespeare video series celebrating William Shakespeare’s four hundredth anniversary.

In this video, Ottessa Moshfegh accepts the 2016 PEN/Hemingway Award for her debut novel, Eileen (Jonathan Cape, 2016). The book is one of four debut novels longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.

"I want to be able to have some impact on the Nigerian youth, and I want to be able to go back home and do something inspiring..." Chigozie Obioma talks about the response to his debut novel, The Fishermen (Little, Brown, 2015), which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and won the 2016 Los Angeles Times Book Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.

"I suppose that's exactly the problem—I wasn't raised to know any better." Novelist and poet Paul Beatty reads from his novel The Sellout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), which was awarded the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction, at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C. Beatty is also a finalist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.

“We have found books that have challenged our notions of what fiction is and how to imagine the world,” says Elnathan John, one of five judges on the panel for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize, about the thirteen novels in contention for the prize. The list includes Celestial Bodies (Sandstone Press, 2018) by Jokha Alharthi, translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2018) by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.