Two former winners and one debut author made the long list for the 2019 Man Booker Prize, a varied list in terms of both genres and nationalities. Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood make repeat appearances on the list — the former for Quichotte and the latter for The Testaments. Atwood’s novel, out September 10, is a sequel to her 1985 dystopian classic The Handmaid’s Tale; its selection raises hopes that the author has carried the story of Gilead into more interesting terrain than Hulu managed to. Oyinkan Braithwaite’s debut novel, My Sister, the Serial Killer, has also made the list — the rare thriller to do so. In a statement, judges called the book “as skillful, sharp and engaging a debut as any first novelist can produce. The prose is as pointed as a lethal weapon in this funny, tragic and wildly entertaining book.” Another first of sorts was Lost Children Archive, the debut in English of Mexican-American author Valeria Luiselli, which focuses in part on the tragedy that greets migrant children at our southern border. The nine other semifinalists are Kevin Barry (Night Boat to Tangier), Lucy Ellmann (Ducks, Newburyport), John Lanchester (The Wall), Deborah Levy (The Man Who Saw Everything), Chigozie Obioma (An Orchestra of Minorities), Max Porter (Lanny), Elif Shafak (10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World), and Jeanette Winterson (Frankissstein). The short list will be announced on September 3. Each finalist wins £2,500. Then, on October 14, the winner of the 2019 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be awarded £50,000, not to mention international acclaim and probably much higher sales.
