Noviolet Bulawayo, and Percival Everett are on the shortlist for The Booker Prize for Fiction 2022 which has just been announced.
The Booker Prize for Fiction, worth £50,000, is a literary prize awarded annually for the best original novel written in the English language and published in the United Kingdom. Since it started in 1969, it has been won by four writers of African descent, Nadine Gordimer (1974), Ben Okri (1991), J. M. Coetzee (1999), Bernardine Evaristo (2019), and Damon Galgut (2021). Some of those who have been shortlisted are Chinua Achebe (1987), Abdulrazak Gumah (1994), Ahdaf Soueif (1999), Achmat Dangor (2004), Marie NDiaye (2013), Chigozie Obioma (2015 and 2019) as well as Tsitsi Dangarembga, Maaza Mengiste, and Brandon Taylor (2020).
The jury for 2022 is chaired by cultural historian, writer, and broadcaster Neil MacGregor alongside academic and broadcaster Shahidha Bari; historian Helen Castor; novelist and critic M. John Harrison; and novelist, poet, and professor Alain Mabanckou.
The longlist for one of the most important prizes for in writing in English was announced on July 26 before the shortlist of six books was revealed today. The following writers of African descent have made the cut;
- Glory, NoViolet Bulawayo
- The Trees, Percival Everett
Neil MacGregor, chair of the Booker Prize 2022 judges said, “These six books, we believe, speak powerfully about important things. Set in different places at different times, they are all about events that in some measure happen everywhere, and concern us all. Each written in English, they demonstrate what an abundance of Englishes there are; how many distinct worlds, real and imaginary, exist in that simple-seeming space, the Anglosphere.”
Noviolet Bulawayo stated on the shortlisting on Facebook, “this happened. thank you to the judges, tholukuthi glory, we are honored. congratulations to the other writers, and thank you once again to everyone reading along.”
Watch the full ceremony below;
The winner will be announced on October 17.
