Booker Prize

From Nobel to Grammy winners: People who defined excellence in 2025

Maria Corina Machado's Peace Prize and Kendrick Lamar's Grammy triumph capture how 2025 honoured both democratic resistance and cultural reinvention

Salman Rushdie warns US book bans threaten free expression globally

Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses was banned in India in 1988 by then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, prompting the author to publish an open letter in the New York Times in response

David Szalay beats Kiran Desai to win 2025 Booker Prize for novel 'Flesh'

Hungarian British author David Szalay was named the winner of the Booker Prize 2025 for his novel Flesh', beating Kiran Desai's The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny' at a ceremony in London on Monday night. Szalay, 51, was presented with 50,000 pounds and a trophy by last year's Booker winner Samantha Harvey for his novel about an emotionally detached man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp. Using only the sparest of prose, this hypnotically tense and compelling book becomes an astonishingly moving portrait of a man's life, the Booker Prize judges said of their winning choice. Desai missed out on becoming only the fifth double winner in Booker Prize's 56-year history, having won the coveted literary prize for fiction back in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss'. I wanted to write a book about global loneliness through the lens of a long, unresolved love story, Desai has said of her new novel. I wanted to write a present-day romance with an old-fashioned beauty. In t

Booker Prize charity launches new prize worth 50K pounds for children

The charity behind one of the world's most significant literary prizes on Friday announced a new 50,000-pounds Children's Booker Prize for fiction, to be selected by a combined panel of child and adult judges. The Booker Prize Foundation, behind the prestigious annual prize for fiction also worth 50,000 pounds, said the first edition of the children's award will open for nominations in 2026 to be awarded annually from 2027. It will celebrate the best contemporary fiction for children aged eight to 12 years old, written in or translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. The Children's Booker Prize is the most ambitious endeavour we've embarked on in 20 years and we hope its impact will resonate for decades to come, Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation. It aims to be several things at once: an award that will champion future classics written for children; a social intervention designed to inspire more young people to read; and a seed from which

Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq inaugurates Dasara festival in Mysuru

The famous Mysuru Dasara festival commenced in the city and palaces on Monday with religious and traditional fervour, with International Booker Prize-winning writer Banu Mushtaq inaugurating the festivities. Mushtaq inaugurated the festivities during the auspicious "Vrushchika Lagna" by showering flowers on the idol of goddess Chamundeshwari, the presiding deity of Mysuru and its royals, amid chanting of Vedic hymns by priests, at the premises of Chamundeshwari temple atop the Chamundi Hills here. Celebrated as 'Nada Habba' (state festival), the 11-day Dasara or 'Sharan Navaratri' festivities are expected to be a grand affair this year, showcasing Karnataka's rich culture and traditions, coupled with reminiscence of royal pomp and glory. In the inaugural event, Mushtaq was accompanied by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, several ministers in the state cabinet, among others. Earlier, Mushtaq, along with CM and other dignitaries, visited the Chamundeshwari temple and offered prayers to th

Kiran Desai returns to Booker longlist with new novel after 19 years

Booker Prize-winning author Kiran Desai on Tuesday returned to the coveted literary award longlist with The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny', a novel described by the judges as a vast and immersive tale about a pair of young Indians in America. The 53-year-old Delhi-born author, who won the Booker Prize 19 years ago in 2006 with The Inheritance of Loss', joins 12 writers from around the world for the so-called Booker Dozen of 13 books that will be whittled down to six shortlisted titles by September. Desai's latest novel stands out as the longest on the longlist, weighing in at 667 pages and published by Hamish Hamilton. The shortest is "Universality" by Natasha Brown at 156 pages. "She has spent almost 20 years writing The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny'. Should she win this year, she would become the fifth double winner in the prize's 56-year history, Booker Prize Foundation said in a statement. Desai has a family history with the prize: her mother Anita Desai was shortlisted for th

Who is Banu Mushtaq, first Kannada author to win International Booker?

Banu Mushtaq becomes the first Kannada author to win the International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp, sharing the honour with translator Deepa Bhasthi

Kannada author Banu Mushtaq wins International Booker for 'Heart Lamp'

Translated by Deepa Bhasthi, 'Heart Lamp' is the first Kannada book and first short story collection to win the International Booker Prize for translated fiction

US court sentences Salman Rushdie attacker Hadi Matar to 25 years in prison

Hadi Matar, convicted of stabbing author Salman Rushdie in 2022, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. The attack left Rushdie blind in one eye and marked a major moment in free speech debate

'The Eleventh Hour': Salman Rushdie's story collection to release on Nov 4

Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie is set to return with a new work of fiction, "The Eleventh Hour", his first since the release of "Victor City" in 2023, Penguin Random House India (PRHI) announced on Thursday. The collection of stories, scheduled to release on November 4, is touted to be "a moving, masterful collection of stories that transport us around the world from Bombay neighbourhoods to elite English universities". It will be published under Penguin's 'Hamish' imprint in India. "The three novellas in this volume, all written in the last twelve months, explore themes and places that have been much on my mind - mortality, Bombay, farewells, England (especially Cambridge), anger, peace, America. And Goya and Kafka and Bosch as well. "I'm happy that the stories, very different from one another in setting, story and technique, nevertheless manage to be in conversation with one another, and with the two stories that serve as prologue and epilogue to this threesome. I hav

Much harder for serious writers to survive now: Irish author Paul Lynch

My writing is designed to reflect human experience in all its richness and complexity, says Lynch

British author David Lodge, twice Booker Prize nominee, dies at 89

British author David Lodge, who was twice short-listed for the country's leading literary prize, has died. He was 89. Lodge's family said they were very proud of the prolific writer, who died on New Year's Day, according to a statement issued by his publisher, Penguin Random House. Lodge is probably best known for his two Booker Prize-nominated novels, 1984's Small World: An Academic Romance and Nice Works four years later. The two novels followed on from 1975's Changing Places, the first in a trilogy series about a fictional university. The trilogy was adapted successfully for television in the 1980s. Lodge, who also wrote memoirs and television scripts, taught in the English department at the University of Birmingham between 1960 and 1987 before retiring to focus on writing. It was interesting growing up with David Lodge as a father," his family said. Conversation over the supper table was always lively, our mother Mary very much held her own, meanwhile, David was ready with a .

Samantha Harvey wins Booker Prize for 'Orbital', a first for space novels

This year's Booker shortlist featured five women among the six finalists, the highest representation of women in the prize's 55-year history

Gained in translation: How mastery in languages can be made a career

Demand for translating Indian language literature and nonfiction is expanding

Sale of e-books not rising, even shrinking in some countries: Damon Galgut

Jaipur Literature Festival 2024: In a conversation with Business Standard, Galgut said currently non-fiction is thriving, and fiction is more under stress

Irish author Paul Lynch's 'Prophet Song' named winner of Booker Prize 2023

Irish author Paul Lynch's "Prophet Song" was named the winner of the Booker Prize 2023, beating London-based Indian-origin author Chetna Maroo's debut novel "Western Lane", at a ceremony in London. Lynch, 46, won for his novel presenting a dystopian vision of Ireland in the grips of totalitarianism, something the author describes as "an attempt at radical empathy". Set in Dublin, "Prophet Song" tells the story of a family grappling with a terrifying new world in which the democratic norms they are used to begin to disappear. "I was trying to see into the modern chaos. The unrest in Western democracies. The problem of Syria the implosion of an entire nation, the scale of its refugee crisis and the West's indifference," said Lynch, who won the GBP 50,000 literary award. "Prophet Song" was the bookies' favourite to win this year's Booker Prize and makes Lynch the fifth Irish author to win the prestigious prize after Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright. "From tha

Indian-origin Chetna Maroo's debut novel shortlisted for Booker Prize 2023

The Booker Prize comes with a cash prize of GBP 50,000, a trophy. The winner will be unveiled on November 26 at an award ceremony in London

Hindi publishers behave as they are doing a favour to writers: Rajesh Joshi

The poet talks about artificial intelligence, translation and 'capitalism's weapons'

Bulgarian writer wins Int'l Booker Prize for darkly comic memory novel

Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel won the International Booker Prize on Tuesday for Time Shelter, a darkly comic novel about the dangerous appeal of nostalgia. The book beat five other finalists to the prize, which recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English. The 50,000 pounds (USD 62,000) in prize money is divided between author and translator. Time Shelter imagines a clinic that recreates the past, with each floor reproducing a different decade. Intended as a way to help people with dementia unlock their memories, it soon becomes a magnet for people eager to escape the modern world. Gospodinov, 55, said he began writing his book about the weaponization of nostalgia in 2016, the year of the election of Donald Trump and the U.K.'s Brexit referendum. He said it was a time when anxiety was in the air. I wanted to write a novel about the monster of the past," he said. "Because you can see in this time that populist ...

Salman Rushdie makes first public appearance since stabbing incident

Nine months after a near-lethal attack that left him debilitated and without vision in one eye, Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie made his first appearance at the PEN Americas