Noted writer Arundhati Roy who won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 is now back on the longlist for her second novel “Ministry of Utmost Happiness” twenty years after winning an award for her debut novel. Arundhati Roy had won her first Booker Prize for fiction in the year 1997 for ‘The God of Small Things’.
If she manages to win, Roy will go on to be the only nominated author for the reputed literary award to have a 100% success rate. The Longlist for the £50,000 Man Booker Prize was chosen by a panel of judges including Baroness Lola Young, literary critic Lila Azam Zanganeh, Man Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Sarah Hall.
Apart from Arundhati Roy, 12 others have made it to the longlist. ‘Only when we’d finally selected our 13 novels did we fully realise the huge energy, imagination, and variety in them as a group. The longlist showcases a diverse spectrum — not only of voices and literary styles but of protagonists too, in their culture, age and gender. Nevertheless, we found there was a spirit common to all these novels: though their subject matter might be turbulent, their power and range were life-affirming – a tonic for our times,” chair of the 2017 judges, Baroness Lola Young was quoted as saying.
Here’s the 2017 longlist of 13 novels:
Title Author (nationality) (imprint)
4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (US) (Faber & Faber)
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry (Ireland) (Faber & Faber)
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (US) (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan-UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Ireland) (Canongate)
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (UK) (4th Estate)
Elmet by Fiona Mozley (UK) (JM Originals)
The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (India) (Hamish Hamilton)
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (US) (Bloomsbury)
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (UK-Pakistan) (Bloomsbury)
Autumn by Ali Smith (UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
Swing Time by Zadie Smith (UK) (Hamish Hamilton)
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (US) (Fleet)
