The 2024 Booker Prize is a £50,000 literary award presented to the best English-language novel published between October 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024, in either the United Kingdom or Ireland.
The winner will be announced on November 12, 2024, in Old Billingsgate, London. Here are the six shortlisted books.
James by Percival Everett (Mantle) Everett’s masterful reworking of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved Jim reclaims the character’s voice from the literary fringes with power, clarity, and sparkling wit.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Cape) The author provides an endearing, deeply human narrative of six astronauts in orbit reflecting on life back on Earth, combining a serious message about the state of our planet – and ourselves – with brilliant hope and a refusal to succumb to despair.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Cape) A hilarious espionage tale mixed with a novel of ideas, Kushner’s tragi-comic masterpiece, The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room, revolves around a group of extreme eco-activists, their charismatic leader, and the gorgeous undercover agent assigned to infiltrate their commune.
Held by Anne Michaels (Bloomsbury) Held offers a beautiful and detailed examination of war, injury, and home that traverses time by jumping back and forth and re-creating the destruction experienced by a WWI soldier who was rendered invalid.
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Viking) Van der Wouden’s astonishing debut, an ethereal, haunting novel with a howl of seething fury at its centre, follows tensions between two women in early-60s rural Holland as they reach boiling point for a hot summer.
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (Sceptre) This fascinating, otherworldly novel from the author of The Weekend explores themes of guilt, forgiveness, and grief, following a lady in a small outback town who receives three terrifying visits.