- Culture
- 29 Jul 25
Roddy Doyle unveils Booker Prize longlist
It was described as the “most global Booker Prize longlist in a decade.”
The longlist for this year’s Booker Prize has been announced, described as the “most global Booker Prize longlist in a decade.”
It was selected by the 2025 judging panel, chaired by critically acclaimed Irish writer and 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle, the first Booker Prize winner to chair the panel.
This year’s 13-books-long longlist includes authors representing nine nationalities across four continents, including four UK authors.
Longlisted authors include Trinidadian and previously Ireland-based writer Claire Adams for her book Love Forms, Tash Aw for The South, longlisted for a third time, and who could become the first Malaysian winner, as well as Indian author Kiran Desai for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, who is nominated 19 years after her previous book won the Booker Prize.
Other nominated writers include Natasha Brown for Universality, Jonathan Buckley with One Boat, Susan Choi for Flashlight, Katie Kitamura for Audition, Ben Markovits for The Rest of Our Lives, Andrew Miller for The Land in Winter, Maria Reva with Endling, David Szalay with Flesh, Benjamin Wood with Seascraper, and Ledia Xhoga with Misinterpretation.
Commenting on this year's longlist, Doyle said: “There are short novels and some very long ones. There are novels that experiment with form and others that do so less obviously. Some of them examine the past and others poke at our shaky present.
“They are all alive with great characters and narrative surprises. All, somehow, examine identity, individual or national, and all, I think, are gripping and excellent.”
Other members of the 2025 judging panel include Booker Prize-longlisted novelist Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀; award-winning actor, producer and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker; writer, broadcaster and literary critic Chris Power; and New York Times bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author Kiley Reid.
