Booker Prize Judges Choose Most Global Longlist for a Decade

Kiran Desai, Tash Aw, and David Szalay were yesterday named among the authors nominated for the 2025 Booker Prize on a longlist that features writers of nine different nationalities—the most global list for a decade.

- Ella Creamer

The judging panel, which this year includes Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, writer Ayobami Adébayo, and chair of judges Roddy Doyle, also chose books by Katie Kitamura, Andrew Miller, Ben Markovits, and Jonathan Buckley as part of their "Booker dozen" long-list of 13 titles.

Susan Choi, Natasha Brown, and Benjamin Wood were also named as longlistees.

Desai made the longlist with her first book since her Booker Prize-winning 2006 novel, The Inheritance of Loss. Set to be published in September, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny took almost 20 years to write, and at 667 pages is the longest title on the list. Her mother, Anita Desai, has previously been shortlisted for the Booker three times.

The chosen books "are all alive with great characters and narrative surprises," said Doyle. "All, somehow, examine identity, individual or national, and all, I think, are gripping and excellent."

Aw was longlisted for the third time for his latest book, The South. Were he to take home the £50,000 award in November, he would become the first Malaysian to win the prize.