This year’s Booker judges faced a crowded field, with scores of eligible books from previously nominated writers and five new novels from winners alone. Notably, Alan Hollinghurst was excluded from the list despite his elegiac novel “Our Evenings”, a beautifully composed panorama of gay life in Britain over the past seven decades.
The list is headed by Kiran Desai’s epic “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny”, which clocks in at nearly 700 pages. This love story explores themes of family, inheritance, intimacy, and solitude as it delves into the lives of two people torn between India and the US.
Other notable debut novelists include Claire Adam, Ben Markovits, and Tash Aw, each bringing their unique perspectives to the table. Susan Choi’s “Flashlight” examines one family with roots in Korea, Japan, and the US, while Maria Reva’s “Endling” uses a comic caper through Ukraine’s marriage industry to explore the role of writers in the face of crisis.
The longlist also features slim books like Katie Kitamura’s “Audition”, which explores identity, performance, and what we are to one another, as well as Natasha Brown’s satirical novel “Universality”, which critiques the current media landscape. The remaining four books, all written by men, offer fascinating explorations of interiority.
Notable mentions include Jonathan Buckley’s philosophical novels, Benjamin Wood’s atmospheric “Seascraper”, and Andrew Miller’s postwar England-set “The Land in Winter”. The final title, David Szalay’s “Flesh”, uses an unusual tactic to create powerful effects by refusing interiority, leaving the reader to ponder the biggest questions about what we can and cannot know.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jul/29/the-booker-prize-longlist