Booker Prize 2023 Longlist

Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song is a harrowing, immersive vision of a near-future Ireland descending into authoritarianism. Told almost entirely in flowing, unbroken prose, the novel follows a mother fighting to protect her family as the state collapses into violence and surveillance. Lynch’s writing is visceral and relentless, capturing the claustrophobia and moral urgency of life under repression. The book is a stark warning about democratic fragility and the human cost of political extremism. It is unforgettable, devastating, and masterfully crafted.

Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting is a sprawling, darkly comic, and emotionally explosive family saga set in the aftermath of Ireland’s financial crash. Each member of the Barnes family narrates their own spiralling crises — marital tension, economic ruin, adolescent turmoil — revealing the cracks beneath their suburban façade. Murray blends humour with tragedy, creating characters who feel painfully real as they grapple with shame, fear, and longing. The novel is ambitious in scope yet intimate in detail, capturing the fragility of the stories families tell about themselves.

Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors is a lush, meticulously crafted historical novel set in early-20th-century Penang. Blending fiction with real events, the book follows writer W. Somerset Maugham and his encounters with a woman whose secrets intertwine with political unrest in colonial Malaya. Tan’s prose is elegant, atmospheric, and steeped in historical nuance. The novel explores betrayal, storytelling, and the shifting boundaries between private lives and political upheaval. It is both intimate and sweeping, richly detailed and emotionally resonant.

Inspired by a real historical community, Paul Harding’s This Other Eden tells the story of an island settlement founded by formerly enslaved people and their descendants. Harding’s lyrical prose brings to life a community shaped by resilience and vulnerability as outside forces threaten its existence. The novel grapples with race, belonging, and the violence of displacement, all within a richly imagined, almost mythic setting. Harding’s storytelling is both elegiac and sharply observed, making this a powerful meditation on survival and erasure.

Chetna Maroo’s Western Lane is a spare, elegant coming-of-age novel about grief, discipline, and the quiet intensity of adolescence. Eleven-year-old Gopi, reeling from her mother’s death, is pushed into strict squash training by her grieving father. Maroo’s prose is minimal yet emotionally resonant, using the precision of the sport to explore unspoken family tensions. The novel is a study in restraint — both in writing and in the emotional lives of its characters — creating a powerful sense of longing and unarticulated desire.

Jonathan Escoffery’s linked stories follow a Jamaican American family navigating identity, belonging, and survival in Miami. Told with sharp humour and emotional depth, the book explores the tensions of diaspora life, racial categorisation, and fractured family bonds. Escoffery’s voice is vibrant and inventive, shifting seamlessly between perspectives and tonal registers. The stories are full of life’s contradictions — comedic yet heartbreaking, intimate yet politically aware. It’s a bold, resonant debut that captures the messy truth of striving in a world that demands constant reinvention.

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s novel is a sweeping, emotionally charged portrait of two Nigerian families whose lives intersect across deep social divides. Through the stories of Eniola, a boy navigating poverty and political corruption, and Wuraola, a young doctor balancing personal and family expectations, Adébáyọ̀ exposes the fragility of opportunity in a society shaped by systemic inequality. Her prose is vivid and compassionate, offering a detailed exploration of love, class tension, and the pressures placed on young people striving for better futures. The novel blends intimacy with political insight, culminating in a heartbreaking yet resonant tale.

Siân Hughes’s Pearl is a moving and atmospheric reimagining of the medieval poem of the same name, told through the story of a girl whose mother disappears. Hughes explores grief, longing, and the myths families weave around loss. Her prose is delicate and lyrical, capturing both the ache and beauty of memory. The narrative blends folklore with psychological depth, creating a modern tale that feels timeless. It is a haunting, emotionally resonant novel about the stories we inherit and the ones we create to survive.

Martin MacInnes’s In Ascension is an ambitious, cosmic novel that begins in marine biology and expands into a meditation on life, origins, and the unknown. Following Dutch scientist Leigh Hasenboch from the deep ocean to outer space, the novel explores both ecological crisis and the mysteries of existence with philosophical intensity. MacInnes’s prose is precise and hypnotic, structured around scientific inquiry and spiritual wonder. It’s a bold, intellectually rich novel that invites readers to contemplate humanity’s place in the universe.

Elaine Feeney’s novel follows Jamie O’Neill, a neurodivergent boy whose curiosity sets him on a journey to connect with his late mother through science and art. Feeney blends humour, vulnerability, and lyrical prose to explore the systems that fail both students and teachers. The novel is filled with compassion and nuance, illustrating how communities form in unexpected places. Feeney’s sensitivity to voice and emotional detail creates a story that is both tender and quietly radical. It’s a novel about grief, belonging, and the small miracles of understanding one another.

In this deeply affecting debut, Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow centres an autistic mother whose ordered life is disrupted when glamorous new neighbours arrive. The novel delicately explores vulnerability, exploitation, and the desire to be understood. Lloyd-Barlow’s prose is intimate and precise, offering a rare portrayal of autistic interiority without sentimentality. As tensions mount, the narrative reveals the sharp edges of social judgement and the cost of trust. It is a tender, unsettling, beautifully crafted novel.

Sebastian Barry delivers a deeply lyrical, melancholic novel about a retired Irish policeman confronting the ghosts of his past. Living alone by the sea, Tom Kettle is visited by unresolved cases that draw him back into memories he’d hoped to escape. Barry’s prose is poetic and immersive, revealing the emotional scars of institutional violence and personal loss. The novel blurs memory and present reality, creating an atmosphere of quiet sorrow and fragile hope. This is a tender, haunting exploration of trauma, aging, and the stories we carry with us.

Sarah Bernstein’s novel is a darkly alluring exploration of power, guilt, and complicity. Narrated by an unnamed woman who moves to a remote northern country to care for her brother, the book unfolds in eerie, atmospheric prose that keeps the reader on edge. Bernstein probes the psychology of submission and the dynamics of otherness, as the narrator becomes entangled in the suspicions and prejudices of the local community. The narrative is unsettling yet hypnotic, raising questions about responsibility and inherited trauma. It is a work of taut, cerebral intensity.