Jump to navigation Skip to content
“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.
“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.
“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.
