Of the six books in contention for the Booker Prize this year -- the winner will be announced on late Monday evening in London – at least four are inspired by real events. When the shortlist was announced, the chair of the judges, Neil MacGregor, said the six books are set in different places at different times but that “they are all about events that in some measure happen everywhere, and concern us all.”
If the Sri Lankan civil war is the backdrop of Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, his second novel after Chinaman, the award-winning debut, American writer Percival Emerett’s novel on racism, The Trees, treats the lynching of Emmett Till in the 1960s as a starting point. Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo looks back at the fall of strongman Robert Mugabe in Glory, using the framework of George Orwell’s Animal Farm to see what has changed in her country -- or not. Irish writer Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These tells a story about a coal trader who finds a young unwed mother cowering in a convent and it is inspired by the Magdalene Laundries scandal, which unearthed how scores of women and girls, considered “fallen”, were forced to do hard labour by the Church from 1922 to 1996, when the last laundry was shut. Keegan has already won the George Orwell Prize for Political Fiction this year for the book.
As for the two other writers on the shortlist, Elizabeth Strout returns to her favourite heroine, Lucy Barton, to tell a story about love, loss, class and inequality – and surprises families spring -- in Oh William!, and Alan Garner, 88, brings together a wanderer and a little boy to ruminate on life and the world around us in Treacle Walker.
This is the Booker’s first in-person ceremony after 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The 50,000 pound Prize ceremony will be held at London’s Roundhouse with singer-songwriter Dua Lipa talking about her love for reading, from 9.15 pm BST on Monday (post 1 am on Tuesday in India).
THE SHORTLIST
Glory, by NoViolet Bulawayo Pictures: thebookerprizes.com
Glory, by NoViolet Bulawayo: A vivid chorus of animals leads an uprising and hopes to teach the human world a thing and more about how to see things clearly. It is a satirical fable on Zimbabwe’s 2017 coup which led to the fall of long-serving President Robert Mugabe. One of the characters in the novel is Old Horse who rules and rules and rules. What happens when Old Horse is finally gone? There’s a lot of rejoicing, till things again get caught in a cycle of violence and repression – and another revolution. Leading the quest for change is a character called Destiny, a goat, who like other women, fight against the regime.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka: Set in Colombo, 1990, a war photographer, gambler and closet gay, Maali Almeida, wakes up dead one morning in what appears to be a visa office for celestial beings. It’s the time of civil war and scores of people are dying. With the afterlife mirroring reality, Almeida has seven moons to lead the two people he loves to a hidden stash of photographs which will shake things up – and also hopefully solve his murder. Karunatilaka fills his satire with ghosts and laughs, and also gives a history lesson on the island country. The Seven Moons is an updated version of Chats with the Dead, which was released just before the pandemic, in January 2020.
Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan
Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan: It’s Christmas in 1985, at a small town in Ireland, and Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, finds a young unwed mother during one of his rounds to a convent. The story plays out in the backdrop of the Magdalene Laundries scandal, where thousands of women were forced into labour by the Catholic Church, and Keegan focuses on the complicity of the community that allows such abuse to go on. Keegan’s historical fiction is also a deep character study of a man who sees a wrong and acts in conscience, and the consequences of his decision.
The Trees, by Percival Everett
The Trees, by Percival Everett: Two black detectives, Ed and Jim, set about investigating a series of murders –eerily, in each crime scene is present a second dead body which resembles Emmett Till, a young black boy lynched in Money, Mississippi decades back. Everything about The Trees is relevant to today’s world, say the Booker judges. “Everett looks at race in America with an unblinking eye, asking what it is to be haunted by history, and what it could or should mean to rise up in search of justice.” Everett hurtles headlong into grim reality with “swagger, humour, relish and rage.”
Oh William!, by Elizabeth Strout
Oh William!, by Elizabeth Strout: This is a Lucy Barton novel, and Strout makes her successful writer-heroine reconnect with her first husband, William, and studies the consequences. They go down memory lane together, their college years, marriage, and birth of their daughters, and also look back at the breakdown of their marriage and yet why they still lean on each other for friendship. They also take stock of the past where more surprises are in store, making it a deeply felt novel of empathy and insight. The judges found it “quietly radiant” and have praised Strout for her gentle reflections on marriage, family, love and loneliness.
Treacle Walker, by Alan Garner
Treacle Walker, by Alan Garner: An unlikely friendship is forged between a wanderer, Treacle Walker, and a boy, Joe Coppock, who has a lazy eye, and squints at the world. Garner sets his story in Cheshire, England, like many of his other work, and quantum physics and imagination come together as Joe begins his journey of discovery. The Booker judges hailed the book as a “mysterious, beautifully written and affecting glimpse into the deep work of being human.”
