Four Irish authors feature on the 2023 Booker Prize longlist of 13 books.
The Irish nominees - making up a third of the longlist for the first time - are Paul Murray for The Bee Sting, Elaine Feeney for How to Build a Boat, Sebastian Barry for Old God’s Time and Paul Lynch for Prophet Song.
The Booker Prize is the leading literary award for single works of fiction published in the UK in English, with the judges looking for the best work of long-form fiction, selected from entries published in the UK and Ireland between October 1st 2022 and September 30th 2023.
The longlist of 13 books – the 'Booker Dozen' – was announced today with the shortlist of six books to follow on 21 September.
37 Irish writers have been recognised by the Booker judges in the prize's history to date, making Ireland the country that has produced the most nominees relative to its population size.
The other nominees are Nigerian author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ for A Spell of Good Things, Canadian-born and Scotland based Sarah Bernstein for Study for Obedience, Jonathan Escoffery for If I Survive You, Paul Harding for This Other Eden, Siân Hughes for Pearl, Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow for All the Little Bird-Hearts, Martin MacInnes for In Ascension, Chetna Maroo for Western Lane and Tan Twan Eng for The House of Doors.
Novelist Esi Edugyan is chair of the 2023 judging panel and is joined by actor, writer and director Adjoa Andoh; poet, lecturer, editor and critic Mary Jean Chan; Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and Shakespeare specialist James Shapiro and actor and writer Robert Webb.
The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced at an event in London on 26 November.
