The most female finalists in the award’s history. What took it so long?
It should be no surprise that many of the most creative, ambitious and far-reaching novels this year were written by women. For the first time in its 55-year history the Booker prize shortlist, announced this week, includes five female authors and only one man. Since its inception in 1969, the most prestigious award for a novel written in English has been won by 18 female writers (Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood have both won twice).
And yet it is a truth universally acknowledged that women both write and buy the majority of fiction. In 1996 the Women’s (initially known as the Orange) prize was created after there were no female authors shortlisted in 1991, and only one for the following four years. As its founder and director Kate Mosse pointed out, the problem wasn’t simply the absence of women, but that nobody seemed to notice. “It’s time for the Paulettes and Paulinas”, the novelist Sara Collins, one of this year’s Booker judges, joked, referring to the three Pauls – Paul Murray, Paul Harding and the winner, Paul Lynch – on last year’s male-dominated shortlist.
The 2024 panel were “surprised and thrilled” to discover that five of their choices were by women, because gender was not the most significant factor in the stories they had to tell. That this is a list based on literary excellence, not box-ticking, was the message.
Themes of the 2024 Booker Shortlist
There is no limit to the scope of these novels, which range from outer-space in Samantha Harvey’s Orbital (the only British author on the list) to prehistoric underground caves in the American author Rachel Kushner’s cerebral spy-caper, Creation Lake. The climate emergency, the legacy of war, trauma and grief are some of the subjects addressed on a shortlist that includes the genre-defying Held by the Canadian poet and author Anne Michaels (famed for Fugitive Pieces), gay love-story-cum-thriller The Safekeep by the Dutch debut novelist Yael van der Wouden, and Australian Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, about a middle-aged environmentalist who retreats into a convent.
These are urgent, outward-looking novels that wrestle with the biggest questions: where have we come from and where are we going? The same must be said of the lone male on the list. James, a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the runaway slave Jim, by the acclaimed US writer Percival Everett, has been lauded by critics and long-tipped as the frontrunner for the prize.
Why the Delay in Female Representation?
While the number of female finalists is a cause for celebration, it doesn’t tell us anything new. Female novelists have dominated books pages, reading groups and prize lists in general for several years. What took the Booker so long? Indeed, the biggest recent publishing trend is a very female one: the Sally Rooney phenomenon and the ensuing glut of books about the lives and loves of young women.
Surprisingly for some, Rooney’s fourth novel, Intermezzo, published next week, was not even on the Booker longlist. But prizes and their shortlists reflect the tastes of their judges, and in an industry often accused of an obsession with youth and newness, one of the many joyful things about this selection is that it showcases female writers in their late 40s, 50s and into their 60s, as well as Van der Wouden, the youngest at 37 – and places their books alongside Everett’s career-defining James. Together, these remarkable novels make up the strongest Booker shortlist in some time.
A Look at the Contenders
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
A tale about desire and infatuation, The Safekeep tells the story of two very different women who find themselves living together when Isabel’s brother drops his irreverent and chaotic girlfriend off at his sister’s house. Set in the aftermath of the Second World War, a rage-fuelled obsession ensues as Isabel desperately grasps for order.
The Dutch author is the only debut writer on the list. Van der Wouden said the book was inspired by a short story she once wrote about “three siblings out for dinner and the additional girlfriend everyone hates”.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Six astronauts rotate around the earth on the International Space Station in Orbital. Their minds wander to existential questions about life, earth, and relationships as they share intimate conversations with one other. Speaking about her novel, Harvey said she attempted to write from a place of realism rather than sci-fi and attempted to do so with “the care of a nature writer”.
Like Everett, this is the second time that the British author has been longlisted for the Booker, the first being in 2009 for The Wilderness. It is the first time she has been shortlisted.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Set amid the chaos of the climate crisis, Kushner’s novel follows protagonist Sadie Smith in her work as an undercover agent on a mission to infiltrate a commune of eco-activists in rural France led by a charismatic leader. Tensions arise when she finds herself falling under his spell.
The American author has been nominated for the Booker once before in 2018 with The Mars Room. She is an internationally bestselling author whose work has been translated into 27 languages. Speaking about Creation Lake, Kushner said that she had long wanted to write a novel about a group of people “on a collision course with the French state”.
Held by Anne Michaels
The acclaimed Canadian author’s third book spans four generations, and revisits themes covered in her earlier work, including history, loss, trauma, and love. In Held, a carousel of characters appear including John who returns home from war grievously wounded; Alan, a war photographer, and Mara, a nurse in a field hospital. Their sense of the present is interrupted by memories of the past as Michaels does away with traditional narrative structures.
Speaking about the themes of her book, she said she had been moved by the voices that were needed “in these urgent times”. The author has won several awards in the past, including the Orange Prize for Fiction, and her books have been translated into more than 50 languages.
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
A middle-aged woman returns to Sydney in need of rest and retreat. An atheist, she surprisingly finds herself embedded within a religious community whose sleepy existence is disturbed by three mysterious events.
Wood is an Australian author whose oeuvre includes seven novels and three works of nonfiction. She said that Stoneyard Devotional “grew from elements of my own life and childhood merging with an entirely invented story about an enclosed religious community”.
James by Percival Everett
A re-telling of Mark Twain’s masterpiece Huckleberry Finn, Everett’s novel follows the experience of Finn’s companion James, a runaway slave. The author has said that he does not see his work as a corrective to the original, but rather as in “conversation” with Twain.
This is the second time that Everett has been nominated for the Booker, the first being for his novel The Trees in 2022. The American author’s 2001 novel Erasure was adapted into Oscar-nominated film, American Fiction starring Jeffrey Wright in 2023.
The Race to the Finish Line
The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize will be announced on Tuesday 12 November, and will be awarded £50,000 in prize money.
The shortlist, while diverse in its themes and perspectives, reflects the shift in contemporary literature towards addressing social and political issues. With the judges selecting a group of established writers, this year’s Booker Prize promises to be a battle of literary titans. Who will emerge as the winner? Only time will tell.
A Final Thought
The 2024 Booker Prize shortlist marks a milestone in the history of the prestigious literary award. It is a testament to the growing recognition of female voices in fiction and a reminder that the world of literature is constantly evolving, reflecting the changing times and the diverse perspectives of our world.
