Sign In
By signing in or creating an account, you agree with Associated Broadcasting Company's Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
By signing in or creating an account, you agree with Associated Broadcasting Company's Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
New Delhi: The 2025 Booker Prize winner will be announced in London on Monday night. It will bring to a close months of speculation and marathon reading sessions. The six shortlisted novels for the £50,000 prize include Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.
The other five contenders are Susan Choi (Flashlight), Katie Kitamura (Audition), Ben Markovits (The Rest of Our Lives), Andrew Miller (The Land in Winter), and David Szalay (Flesh).
Let's take a brief look at these authors and their books.
Flashlight by Susan Choi: Susan Choi is a 56-year-old American novelist. She has written several novels, including The Foreign Student, American Woman, and Trust Exercise, which bagged the National Book Award for Fiction. Her most recent novel is Flashlight. The novel starts with a traumatic disappearance. The story expands across decades, continents and generations. The novel shows how personal grief intertwines with the larger currents of history.
Audition by Katie Kitamura: A 46-year-old American novelist, journalist, and art critic, Kitamura has been teaching creative writing at New York University. In 2013, her Gone to the Forest was shortlisted for the Young Lions Fiction Award. Her other novels include The Longshot: A Novel (2009) and A Separation (2017). In Audition, Kitamura dives deep into desire, ambition, and the subtle power dynamics in human connections. Her writing is very controlled, but often has an eerie touch to it.
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits: Markovits is a 52-year-old British-American writer. He has authored 12 novels, including a trilogy on the life of Lord Byron. In 2013, he was selected as one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta magazine. The novel The Rest of Our Lives explores friendship, loyalty, and the struggle to reconcile youthful dreams with life's realities. It also deals with the challenges of adulthood, marriage, and parenthood.
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller: Miller is a British novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels and received many awards, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International Dublin Literary Award, the Costa Book Award for Book of the Year, and the Walter Scott Prize. His most acclaimed novels are Ingenious Pain (1997), Casanova (1998), Pure (2011) and Now We Shall Be Entirely Free (2005). The Land in Winter is set in rural England during the freezing winter of 1962–63 and centres around the lives of two neighbouring young married couples. It explores isolation, secrets, identity, shifting loyalties and hidden truths.
Flesh by David Szalay: Born in Canada, Szalay grew up in London and now lives in Vienna. The Hungarian-British writer is the author of six works of fiction that have been translated into over 20 languages, as well as several BBC radio dramas. London and the South-East, his debut novel, won Betty Trask and Geoffrey Faber Memorial prizes. All That Man Is bagged the Gordon Burn Prize and Plimpton Prize for Fiction. It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016. Flesh deals with sexuality, loneliness, craving and power. It is a darkly witty and bold examination of human sexuality and desire.
Born in New Delhi, Kiran is the daughter of author Anita Desai. She spent the early years of her life in Punjab and Mumbai. At the age of 14, Kiran left India and after spending a year in England with her mother, they relocated to the US. Kiran was educated in India, England and the US. She now lives in New York.
Kiran's first novel was Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. It was published in 1998 to unanimous acclaim in more than 22 countries. It bagged the Betty Trask Award. Her second book The Inheritance of Loss won the Booker Prize in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. It was also shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Set in the Himalayas, the novel explores themes of identity, culture clash, and the impact of colonialism.
In January 2015, The Economic Times named Kiran among the 20 most influential Indian women globally. In 2008, Kiran was invited by the Gates Foundation project to report on the lives of a community of sex workers in Andhra Pradesh.
It is a novel exploring isolation, ambition, and the harsh realities of urban life in India. It is about two young individuals whose paths cross in the city. It exposes their loneliness and lays bare their identity qualms and the need for bonding. The book deals with the emotional worlds of both the individuals, their despondency and despair, their hopes and dreams and the challenges these pose.
The book is a love story of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the intricate connections that bind one generation to the other.
