Nigeria: 'A List to Bring Wonder' - 2023 Booker Prize Longlist Announced, Including Ayobami Adebayo and Tan Twan Eng

Ayobami Adebayo/Instagram
Ayobami Adebayo's new novel, A Spell of Good Things, has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023.
10 August 2023
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
analysis By Jennifer Malec

The 2023 Booker Prize longlist has been announced, offering 'startling portraits of the current'.

The thirteen longlisted books explore 'universal and topical themes: from deeply moving personal dramas to tragi-comic family sagas; from the effects of climate change to the oppression of minorities; from scientific breakthroughs to competitive sport'.

This year's longlist features writers from seven countries across four continents.

Nigerian author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is the only African writer on the longlist this year, for her novel A Spell of Good Things, although Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng spent some years in Cape Town, and his longlisted novel, The House of Doors, is set partly in South Africa.

2023 Booker Prize longlist

  • Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (Nigerian) A Spell of Good Things (Canongate)
  • Sebastian Barry (Irish) Old God's Time (Faber & Faber)
  • Sarah Bernstein (Canadian) Study for Obedience (Granta Books)
  • Jonathan Escoffery (American) If I Survive You (4th Estate)
  • Elaine Feeney (Irish) How to Build a Boat (Harvill Secker)
  • Paul Harding (American) This Other Eden (Hutchinson Heinemann)
  • Siân Hughes (British) Pearl (The Indigo Press)
  • Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow (British) All the Little Bird-Hearts (Tinder Press)
  • Paul Lynch (Irish) Prophet Song (Oneworld)
  • Martin MacInnes (British) In Ascension (Atlantic Books)
  • Chetna Maroo (British) Western Lane (Picador)
  • Paul Murray (Irish) The Bee Sting (Hamish Hamilton)
  • Tan Twan Eng (Malaysian) The House of Doors (Canongate)

Esi Edugyan, chair of the Booker Prize 2023 judges,...

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