After a much-anticipated wait with a high-profile shortlist, the winner of the Booker Prize for 2019 has been revealed, and it's history-making in more ways than one.
On Monday evening (14th October), the Booker Prize was jointly awarded to Margaret Atwood and Bernadine Evaristo.
79-year-old Atwood scooped the prize for her long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale: The Testaments which details the fall of the dystopian woman-oppressing society Gilead based on the scriptures of three women who all had different roles and lives in the regime.
Meanwhile, Evaristo's book: Girl. Woman. Other tells the separate but linked stories of 12 British women of colour. As a recipient of the coveted prize, Evaristo has become the first black woman to be awarded the Booker.
Though there have been joint winners twice before (in 1974 and 1992), the rules were changed in 1993 so that only one winner could be awarded the £50,000 prize.
However, the judges were so torn this year that they threw out the rulebook and awarded both women the prize, with them halving the prize money.
Peter Florence, the Chair of this year's judging panel, said of their decision: "In the room today we talked for five hours about books we love. Two novels we cannot compromise on. They are both phenomenal books that will delight readers and will resonate for ages to come."
Shortlisted Booker Prize reads for 2019
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
For those addicted to the Channel 4 adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, this nomination will be warmly welcomed, albeit not overly surprising. Atwood’s highly anticipated sequel is set 15 years after the end of the seminal dystopian tale and follows the lives of three women in the totalitarian state of Gilead. This is the Canadian novelist’s sixth nomination for the award.
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
This door stopper of a book will overtake 2013 winner The Luminaries (Eleanor Catton) as the longest novel ever to win the prize, if successful. Ducks, Newburyport spans an impressive 998 pages, and yet it is only punctuated into a mere eight sentences. This challenging and ambitious read is a stream-of-consciousness and written as a monologue that dives into the mind of an Ohio housewife. Ellmann is the only American author to have reached the shortlist this year, which comes at an interesting time after debates were sparked last year about excluding American authors from consideration for the prize.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Evaristo's latest novel Girl, Woman, Other is a witty, complex and dynamic exploration of 12 black British women, whose lives are interconnected in various ways. Written in a style that seamlessly blends prose with poetry, this novel has been praised for its poignant dealing of issues concerning feminism and race. Evaristo is one of the UK's most celebrated black women authors. Speaking of her writing, Evaristo has previously said that she aims to ‘explore the hidden narratives of the African diaspora’ and ‘subvert expectations and assumptions’.
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma
Described by judge Afua Hirsch as 'a book that wrenches the heart', this is the second novel and second Booker Prize shortlist nomination for 33-year-old Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma. Narrated by a chi (a guardian spirit in Igbo cosmology), An Orchestra of Minorities tells the romantic yet tragicomic tale of a Nigerian chicken farmer, Chinoso, whose love for a wealthier woman makes him fall victim to a European education scam.
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
This is the first shortlisting for the incredibly talented Turkish writer, Elif Shafak. Set in Istanbul, this novel centres on sex worker 'Tequila Leila' in the final 10 minutes 38 seconds of her life before she is killed and left in a rubbish bin on the outskirts of the city. An arresting exploration of sexual violence and enriched by the blend of fact and fiction for which Shafak is known, judge Liz Calder has labelled it 'audacious and dazzlingly original'.
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
The current favourite to win the prize, this modern epic takes inspiration from the hugely influential Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Literary legend Rushdie's 12th novel traces the tale of an ageing pharmaceutical salesman who falls in love with a television star and travels across America to win her hand. The novel has been described by judges as a 'picaresque tour-de-force of contemporary America, with all its alarms and craziness'. This nomination comes 38 years after Rushdie won the prize in 1981, for his second novel Midnight’s Children.
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