Booker Prize : NPR

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai

Hogarth

Review

'The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny' is a terrific, tangled love story

October 3, 2025 • This is an epic novel to be savored. At nearly 700 pages, this multi-character, multi-stranded story explores exile and displacement — not only from one's home, but also from one's own sense of self.

FA: Book review: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

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Booker Prize 2025 shortlisted authors (left to right): Susan Choi, Andrew Miller, Kiran Desai, Ben Markovits, Katie Kitamura, David Szalay Premiere Scotland Ltd. hide caption

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Premiere Scotland Ltd.

The Booker shortlist honors authors 'in total command' of their craft

September 23, 2025 • The 2025 Booker shortlist is made up of works by veteran authors, many of whom have several books under their belts — and a couple that have been on this list before.

Book covers of Love Forms; The South; Universality; One Boat; Flashlight; The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny; Audition; The Rest of Our Lives; The Land in Winter; Endling; Flesh; Seascraper; Misinterpretation

NPR

Here are the 13 books that made the Booker Prize longlist

July 29, 2025 • The prize is one of the most prestigious awards in literature. This year's crop of nominees includes two debut novelists going up against a previous Booker Prize winner.

Author Banu Mushtaq (left) and translator Deepa Bhasthi (right) won this year's International Booker Prize, for the book Heart Lamp.

Author Banu Mushtaq (left) and translator Deepa Bhasthi won this year's International Booker Prize, for the book Heart Lamp. Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images hide caption

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Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images

'Heart Lamp' wins International Booker, with stories of India's Muslim women and girls

May 20, 2025 • The major writing prize awards the best fiction translated into English. Judges called Banu Mushtaq's short story collection "something genuinely new for English readers."

Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka wins 2022 Booker Prize

Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka holds his book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida at the Shaw Theatre in London on Oct. 14. On Monday, his novel won the 2022 Booker Prize. Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images

Books

Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka wins 2022 Booker Prize

October 17, 2022 • The prestigious award was given to The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which the judges hailed as "a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war."

The Booker Prize shortlist of six works of fiction is announced

The six novels on the Booker Prize 2022 Shortlist. Booker Prize Foundation hide caption

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Booker Prize Foundation

Books

The Booker Prize shortlist of six works of fiction is announced

September 6, 2022 • Among the six authors who made the Booker Prize shortlist are Elizabeth Strout, NoViolet Bulawayo and Percival Everett. The winner will be announced in October.

'Shuggie Bain,' Douglas Stuart's First Novel, Wins 2020 Booker Prize

Grove

Books

'Shuggie Bain,' Douglas Stuart's First Novel, Wins 2020 Booker Prize

November 19, 2020 • Shuggie Bain is "a moving, immersive and nuanced portrait of a tight-knit social world, its people and its values," the judges wrote. Stuart based the book on his childhood in Glasgow, Scotland.

Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie Headline 2019 Booker Prize Shortlist

Clockwise from top left: Quichotte by Salman Rushdie; Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann; An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma; 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo; and The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Courtesy of the publishers hide caption

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Courtesy of the publishers

Book News & Features

Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie Headline 2019 Booker Prize Shortlist

September 3, 2019 • Atwood made the list for her sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, and Rushdie for his reimagining of Don Quixote. Chigozie Obioma, Elif Shafak, Lucy Ellmann and Bernardine Evaristo round out the finalists.

George Saunders Wins Man Booker Prize For 'Lincoln In The Bardo'

Author George Saunders poses with his book Lincoln in the Bardo at the Royal Festival Hall in London on Monday. On Tuesday, he was announced as the winner of the 2017 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Chris J. Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Chris J. Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images

The Two-Way

George Saunders Wins Man Booker Prize For 'Lincoln In The Bardo'

October 17, 2017 • It's the second year in a row that an American writer has taken home the prestigious literary award.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Award-Winning Novelist And Screenwriter, Dies

This undated publicity photo provided by Merchant Ivory Productions shows Oscar-winning screenwriter and award-winning novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (center) with film director and producer Ismail Merchant (left) and director James Ivory in a studio. Jhabvala, 85, died in New York on Wednesday. AP hide caption

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AP

The Two-Way

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Award-Winning Novelist And Screenwriter, Dies

April 3, 2013 • Her scripts gave the sprawling Merchant-Ivory films substance. She won her first screenwriting Oscar for A Room With a View and her second for Howard's End. She won the Booker Prize in 1975 for her novel Heat and Dust. The cause of death was complications of a pulmonary condition. Jhabvala was 85.