Three African writers have been longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize
The writers who made the list for the prestigious award are South Africa’s Damon Galgut and Karen Jennings along with Somali/British writer Nadifa Mohamed.
They are up against 10 other writers from different parts of the world. The award is for a novel written in English by an author from anywhere in the world.
Their inclusion is an improvement on 2020’s list which featured two authors from the continent, Maaza Mengiste and Tsitsi Dangarembga – but neither won.
Damon Galgut made the cut for the third time with his novel, ‘The Promise’ which highlighted the history of South Africa and its struggle with apartheid, peace and reconciliation.
Karen Jennings writes about a friendship with the novel, ‘An Island,’ while Mohamed joins others with ‘The Fortune Men’ which tells the true story of discrimination against a Somali man in Wales in the 1950s.
Authors who make the last 6 man shortlist would receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book while the winning author receives £50,000 at the November 3rd award ceremony.
The 2021 longlist:
A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam (Granta Books, Granta Publications)
Second Place, Rachel Cusk, (Faber)
The Promise, Damon Galgut, (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, PRH)
The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris (Tinder Press, Headline, Hachette Book Group)
Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber)
An Island, Karen Jennings (Holland House Books)
A Town Called Solace, Mary Lawson (Chatto & Windus, Vintage, PRH)
No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing)
The Fortune Men, Nadifa Mohamed (Viking, Penguin General, PRH)
Bewilderment, Richard Powers (Hutchinson Heinemann, PRH)
China Room, Sunjeev Sahota (Harvill Secker, Vintage, PRH)
Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead (Doubleday, Transworld Publishers, PRH)
Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford (Faber)
