Dubai-based Indian-origin author Avni Doshi is among the 13 authors longlisted for the prestigious 2020 Booker Prize for her debut novel, Burnt Sugar, alongside double Booker winner Hilary Mantel for The Mirror and The Light.
The so-called “Booker Dozen” was unveiled on Tuesday after judges evaluated 162 novels published in the UK or Ireland between October 2019 and September 2020, with a shortlist of six to be whittled down by September in time for the £50,000 literary prize in November.
“This utterly compelling read examines a complex and unusual mother-daughter relationship with honest, unflinching realism — sometimes emotionally wrenching but also cathartic, written with poignancy and memorability,” the judges said of Doshi’s longlisted entry.
Doshi, born in the US and now living in Dubai, has previously spoken about the long journey to her first novel, which was released in India last year as Girl in White Cotton and gets a UK release this Thursday as Burnt Sugar.
For the coveted Booker, Doshi goes head to head with literary heavyweight Mantel, who is in the running for her final instalment in her series set in King Henry VIII’s 16th century England.
“The Mirror and the Light completes a tragic arc in which Thomas Cromwell [Henry VII’s Minister] is finally brought down by the police state he designed.