--- title: 2021 Booker Prize Shortlist Announced description: Each of the six “immersive stories” nominated deals with “pertinently poignant” issues of life and death, the judges said canonical: https://time.com/6097828/booker-prize-shortlist-2021/ author: Eloise Barry article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-09-14T18:36:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T10:18:54.641Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Booker Prize Shortlist Announced og:description: The judges said the global scope of the books felt “transporting in a year where so many of us have been confined." og:url: https://time.com/6097828/booker-prize-shortlist-2021/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f553fc43c94a6ec/698a1ce7096a9424096aba7b/booker-prize-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Booker Prize 2021 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Booker Prize Shortlist Announced twitter:description: The judges said the global scope of the books felt “transporting in a year where so many of us have been confined." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f553fc43c94a6ec/698a1ce7096a9424096aba7b/booker-prize-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Booker Prize Shortlist Highlights Stories Dealing with Life and Death in a 'Year for Reading' > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Eloise Barry](https://time.com/author/eloise-barry/) ## Eloise Barry Sep 14, 2021 6:36 PM UTC  The Booker Prize 2021 shortlist includes novels by three U.S. writers, Patricia Lockwood, Richard Powers and Maggie Powell The Booker Prize 2021 shortlist includes novels by three U.S. writers, Patricia Lockwood, Richard Powers and Maggie PowellThe Booker Prize by [Eloise Barry](https://time.com/author/eloise-barry/) ## Eloise Barry Sep 14, 2021 6:36 PM UTC American writers Patricia Lockwood, Richard Powers and Maggie Shipstead have been shortlisted for the [Booker Prize](https://time.com/4987289/man-booker-prize-2017-george-saunders/), one of the most prestigious literary honors in the English-speaking world. Lockwood, also known for her poetry, was shortlisted for her debut novel _No One is Talking About This_, while Pulitzer Prize winner and previous Booker nominee Powers secured a spot on the list for _Bewilderment_. ​​Shipstead was shortlisted for her third novel, _Great Circle._ The Booker Prize was opened up to writers outside of the U.K. in 2014, as long as their submissions are in English. The winner, who will take home $69,257 (£50,000) and earn international acclaim, will be announced on Nov. 2. Led by historian Maya Jasanoff, the judges said the global scope of the shortlisted books, in both their authors and settings, felt “transporting in a year where so many of us have been confined to our homes.” Three of the novels deal with race. British-Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed’s _The Fortune Men_, reimagining the life of the British-Somali man wrongfully convicted and executed for murder in 1950s Wales, while South African writer Damon Galgut’s _The Promise_ follows the lives of a white family in post-apartheid South Africa. Anuk Arudpragasam’s “hypnotic” novel, _A Passage North,_ follows a Tamil survivor of the Sri Lankan civil war as he revisits the trauma endured by his grandmother’s carer. Appropriate for fiction published during a global pandemic, each of the six “immersive stories” deals with “pertinently poignant” issues of life and death, the judges said. _Bewilderment_ and _No One is Talking About This_, for example, grapple with the intersections of grief and crises in the age of technology. **Read more:** [_The 34 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2021_](https://time.com/6092265/fall-books-2021/) Intertwining time periods are a common stylistic theme among the shortlisted books. [Shipstead](https://time.com/56116/maggie-shipstead-astonish-me-review/)’s _Great Circle_ parallels the life of a missing female pilot in the 1950s with a 21st century actress starring in a film about the aviator. Arudpragasam’s _A Passage North_ overlays the protagonist’s present day return to his home country with memories of a traumatic past. During a livestream the judges from across the world, including twice Booker-shortlisted novelist Chigozie Obioma and former Archbishop Rowan Williams, described the intensity of whittling down long-listed 158 books to just six during a pandemic. “This has been a year for reading, unlike any other,” said 2021 chair Jasanoff. The “acutely introspective” nature of the shortlisted novels is “reflective of the experience of reading in lockdown,” she said. Nobel laureate [Kazuo Ishiguro](https://time.com/5943376/kazuo-ishiguro-interview/) was among the long-listed nominees not to make the cut with his novel _Klara and the Sun,_ drawing surprise among some onlookers. The British author’s _The Remains of the Day_ won the award in 1989. Last year’s Booker Prize winner for fiction was Douglas Stuart, for his debut novel [_Shuggie Bain_](https://time.com/collection/must-read-books-2020/5904317/shuggie-bain/), about a young boy growing up in poverty in 1980s Glasgow. Bernadine Evaristo’s _Girl Woman Other_ and Margaret Atwood’s _The Testaments_ were joint winners in 2019. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6097828/booker-prize-shortlist-2021/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6097828/booker-prize-shortlist-2021/"},"headline":"Booker Prize Shortlist Highlights Stories Dealing with Life and Death in a 'Year for Reading'","datePublished":"2021-09-14T18:36:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T10:18:54.641Z","description":"The judges said the global scope of the books felt 'transporting in a year where so many of us have been confined to our homes.'","url":"https://time.com/6097828/booker-prize-shortlist-2021/","keywords":["Books","News","Londontime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f553fc43c94a6ec/698a1ce7096a9424096aba7b/booker-prize-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eloise Barry","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/eloise-barry/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f553fc43c94a6ec/698a1ce7096a9424096aba7b/booker-prize-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Booker Prize 2021","caption":"The Booker Prize 2021 shortlist includes novels by three U.S. writers, Patricia Lockwood, Richard Powers and Maggie Powell","creditText":"The Booker Prize","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6097828/booker-prize-shortlist-2021/","name":"Booker Prize Shortlist Highlights Stories Dealing with Life and Death in a 'Year for Reading'"}}]}] ```