The personal meets the political in a list that includes dystopia and SF as well as little-known debuts
• Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist
Those accustomed to complaining about the number of American writers nominated for the Booker prize since the widening of eligibility in 2014 will get a pleasant surprise this year: the sector that leads is Irish writers – and people called Paul. That’s not the only surprise; the judges have chosen to spotlight some little-known debuts in the place of major novels. While it feels reductive to read the longlist in terms of what’s not included, many will have expected to see Zadie Smith’s September novel The Fraud, and Tom Crewe’s acclaimed debut The New Life, among others.
The presence of four Irish writers, meanwhile, is far from surprising (and that’s without the inclusion of Anne Enright’s fine forthcoming novel The Wren, The Wren, or Claire Kilroy’s scorching tale of new motherhood, Soldier Sailor). Sebastian Barry is a veteran author who pushes himself with each new book, and Old God’s Time is a devastating, dreamlike study of the lifetime repercussions of historic childhood abuse in Catholic institutions. Paul Murray, loved for 2010’s tragicomic Skippy Dies, writes the novel of his career with The Bee Sting, which uncovers a family’s slow-burning secrets against a backdrop of climate anxiety – in terms of pure page-turning pleasure, this is probably the most enjoyable novel on the list. Elaine Feeney’s How to Build a Boat explores the meaning of community and outsiderdom through one boy’s story, while Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, scheduled for September, is a chilling study of Ireland becoming a fascist state.
