The shortlist for the Booker Prize 2025 features six novels by established writers—without a single debut author among them.
The selected titles are: Flashlight by Susan Choi, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, Audition by Katie Kitamura, The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits, The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, and Flesh by David Szalay.
Among the selected writers, Indian origin novelist Kiran Desai is a winner of Booker Prize. Her compelling new novel The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny marks another landmark in her career. Historian William Dalrymple calls her novel a “transcendent triumph.”
The list includes three books by Americans Susan Choi’s family saga “Flashlight”; Katie Kitamura’s tale of acting and identity, “Audition”; and midlife-crisis road trip “The Rest of Our Lives” by Ben Markovits.
Each novel explores human experience across a range of settings and cultures, unified by a central theme: the tension between individual desires and the expectations imposed by relationships, society, and circumstances.
In their own ways, books grapple with how people navigate personal hopes while striving for coexistence—often resulting in emotional, relational, or cultural conflict.
As the Booker jury noted, the shortlisted works “push the boundaries of narrative form,” presenting familiar domestic situations: shifting power dynamics between parents and children, marriages in crisis, families burdened by legacy, and individuals struggling to meet imposed roles.
The books span diverse geographies—from Hungary to Japan, Italy to the US, India to England—and often follow rootless characters far from the places they once called home. The narratives also vary widely in scope: some unfold over just days or weeks, others span decades.
Hurrah! See Kiran Desai @JaipurLitFest Seattle next weekend, 19th-21st Sept, North Carolina 26th-28th and the Jaipur mothership 15th-19th January!
Kiran Desai’s Long-Awaited Return Is a Transcendent Triumph
“not so much a novel as a marvel” https://t.co/la5mUcCSG9— William Dalrymple (@DalrympleWill) September 14, 2025
This year’s shortlist was chosen from 153 submissions of long-form fiction, written in English by authors of any nationality, and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025.
The winner of the 2025 Booker Prize will receive £50,000, to be announced at a ceremony in London on November 10. Each of the shortlisted authors will also receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.
The judging panel is chaired by acclaimed author and 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle. He is joined by novelist Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, actor and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker, writer and critic Chris Power, and bestselling author Kiley Reid.
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Huma Nisar is Associate Editor at Views and News. She also writes opinion articles on health, society and diet.
