The Booker Prize is one of the UK’s most prestigious awards for fiction in English. Booker Prize reflects the range and diversity of fiction written in English. It also showcases an impressive variety of styles and genres – from historical fiction to science fiction and fantasy; from thriller to romance; from epic sagas to intimate portraits of one person’s life.  But, the Shortlist for the Booker Prize 2022 has been released! Out of thirteen authors, six have gotten through.  Here are the authors on The Booker Prize 2022 Shortlist: 

Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout 

Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York trying to navigate the second half-life of her life as a recent widow and parent to two adult daughters. When a chance encounter reconnects her with her first husband, William. Lucy finds herself revisiting their relationship, the high points and the low. Oh, William captures the joy and sorrow of watching children grow up, start their own families, and discover life secrets.  

Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

With echoes of Animal Farm, this novel follows a charismatic horse who comes to and rules the lands after a bloody War of Liberation. For forty years, he continues to rule with the help of his elite band of Chosen Ones, a scandalously violent pack of Defenders, and his beloved and ambitious young donkey wife, Marvellous. However, one day he settles down, unaware that a new regime and a new leader are beginning to form. 

The Trees by Percival Everett

Opening with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi, a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive. Instantly they are met with resistance from the local shelf and his deputy, the coroner, and the racist folks of the town. The murders present a puzzle: at every crime scene, there is a second body. The body is that of a man who resembles Emmett Till, a young black boy who was lynched in the same town 65 years before. At first, the detective suspects these killings or some time of retribution but soon discovers that these murders are happening all over the country.  

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

A mix of myth and folklore, with vivid storytelling of a young mind trying to make sense of the world around him. A young strikes up an unlikely friendship with an enigmatic, wandering healer. 

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

A satire set admits the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 1990. We follow Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler, and closet, who woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. 

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

In 1985 in an Irish town, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, coal and timber merchant Bill Furlong is facing his busiest season. As he does his rounds, his past rises up to meet him and encounters the silences of a people controlled by the local Church. 

Congratulations to the shortlisted authors. If you are interested in checking out the long list, you can visit the Booker Prize website. 

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Freelance writer with a love of books, particularly those from the 70s and 80s, and in the horror genre, she also has a fondness for classical literature and isn't opposed to digging in with the odd women's fiction. She lives in Shropshire, England with her husband, several furry guinea pups, and Duke the Fish. In order to stop annoying her husband with her constant conversation about the books she reads, she created Step Into The Void, a blog named after the mental state her other half says he steps into whenever she starts talking about the latest Jay Kristoff vampire novel or decides to try to explain the entire plot to Jenn Lyon's four-book epic The Chorus of Dragons or tries to explain why the horror fiction genre is slowing coming back thanks to authors like Grady Hendrix, Augustina Bazterrica, and Catriona Ward.  

Check out her Instagram @booksinthevoid