But now we’ll have thousands and thousands of people reading along with us.” It’s been an exhilarating journey so far and we’re looking forward to reading them again. Still, despite what they have in common, every one of these books is wildly distinctive. And we were struck, overall, by their disruptive power: these novels disrupted the way we thought about things we knew about, and made us think about things we didn’t know about. Among their many remarkable qualities is a willingness to take risks with form. All of these books – which take in slavery, ecology, missing persons, inner-city violence, young love, prisons, trauma, race – capture something about a world on the brink. Some of those we have chosen for this longlist feel urgent and topical, others might have been admired and enjoyed in any year. “Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the times, there were many dystopian fictions on our bookshelf – and many novels we found inspirational as well as disturbing. In Our Mad And Furious City (Tinder Press)įrom A Low And Quiet Sea (Doubleday Ireland)Ĭhair of the 2018 judges, Kwame Anthony Appiah, says:

The 2018 longlist, or Man Booker ‘Dozen’, of 13 novels, is: Author (country/territory)

Man booker prize