Exciting day today as the final shortlist for the 2021 Booker Prize has been revealed.

The final six novels include debut novel No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, The Promise by Damon Galgut (who makes it to the list for the third time) and Bewilderment by Richard Powers. Also making the list are Anuk Arudpragasam for A Passage North, Nadifa Mohamed with The Fortune Men and Maggie Shipstead with Great Circle.  Each of the shortlisted authors received 2,500 pounds ($4,723) and a specially bound edition of their book.

Maya Jasanoff, the Chair of The Booker Prize judging panel has said this of the shortlisted works:

“Some are acutely introspective, taking us into the mind of a Tamil man tracing the scars of Sri Lanka’s civil war, and an American woman unplugging from the internet to cope with a family crisis. Some enter communities in the throes of historical transformation: the Cardiff docklands in the early years of British decolonisation, and the veld around Pretoria in the last years of apartheid. And some have global sweep, following a mid-century aviator in her attempt to circumnavigate the planet, and a present-day astrobiologist raising a son haunted by climate change.”

Recent winners of the Booker Prize have been Douglas Stuart for ‘Shaggie Bain’ (2021), Margaret Atwood for ‘Testaments’ (2019, Bernardine Evaristo for ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ (2019) and Anna Burns for ‘Milkman’ (2018).

The 2021 winner of The Booker Prize will be announced on Wednesday, November 3.  The winner of the Booker Prize wins $50,000-pound ($94,467).