Revealed: The 13 authors in the running for the Booker Prize 2025
Roddy Doyle (centre) is the chair of this year's Booker Prize judging panel
Thirteen authors have been longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, including a previous winner as well as two debut novelists, but no Irish authors.
The ‘Booker Dozen’ features nine nationalities across four continents: Albania, Canada, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, the UK and USA. UK authors have secured the highest number of nominations — five authors who identify as British or joint British are in the running this year.
Last year, British author Samantha Harvey became the first woman since 2019 to win the £50,000 prize with her book . Dublin author Paul Lynch won the award in 2023 for .
“There are short novels and some very long ones. There are novels that experiment with form and others that do so less obviously,” says Irish author Roddy Doyle, chair of judges.
“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.”
The 13 authors and their nominated works are:
- by Claire Adam.
- by Tash Aw.
- by Natasha Brown.
- by Jonathan Buckley.
- by Susan Choi.
- by Kiran Desai.
- by Katie Kitamura.
- by Ben Markovits.
- by Andrew Miller.
- by Maria Reva.
- by David Szalay.
- by Benjamin Wood.
- by Ledia Xhoga.
Previous winner Kiran Desai is nominated 19 years after her book won the Booker Prize, and Tash Awm, who could become the first Malaysian winner, is longlisted for a third time.
Two debuts, Ledia Xhoga’s and Maria Reva’s , are hoping to replicate the success of six debut novels which have won the Booker in its 56-year history, the most recent being Douglas Stuart’s .
The longest book on the list is Kiran Desai’s , weighing in at over 650 pages, while the shortest is by Natasha Brown.
There were 153 submissions for this year’s Prize, which is worth £50,000 (€57,760) and celebrates the best works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English by a writer of any nationality and published in the UK and/or Ireland between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025.
Hollywood actress Sarah Jessica Parker joins Irish writer Roddy Doyle among the Booker Prize judges this year, along with Booker Prize-longlisted authors Ayobami Adebayo and Kiley Reid, and broadcaster and literary critic Chris Power. Doyle, who won the award in 1993 for , is the chair of the panel and the first past Booker winner to chair the judges.
"My four colleagues are a generous, funny group but what was clear from the outset was that these are people who love – actually, who need – great books. Every decision was carefully measured; each of our books was examined with skill, wisdom and affection," Doyle says of his fellow judges.
star Parker, 60, is an avid reader who has had her own literary imprint publisher for several years. Parker’s imprint SJP Lit, part of publisher Zando, has seen by Alina Grabowski, by Elysha Chang and by Kim Coleman Foote published since 2022.
She and her husband, star Matthew Broderick, holiday in Co Donegal and were cheering on the team in the All-Ireland last Sunday, with Broderick featuring on Saturday night’s programme.
A shortlist of six books will be announced on September 23, with the winner announced on November 10.
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