Everything you need to know about the Booker Prize 2023 shortlist
As the Booker Prize 2023 shortlist is announced, we’ve pulled together the most interesting facts and trends that have emerged in this year’s selection
Watch actors read extracts from 2023's shortlisted books
Watch Caitríona Balfe, Alfred Enoch, Bel Powley, Paterson Joseph, Susan Lynch and Nina Wadia read extracts from the six books on the Booker Prize 2023 shortlist in these extraordinary films
For the third time, we have commissioned Sharon Horgan’s production company Mermade to produce a series of short films, which feature six of the UK and Ireland’s best known actors reading extracts from the books on the Booker Prize 2023 shortlist.
The films produced by Mermade for the International Booker Prize 2023 earlier this year were viewed over three million times on the Booker Prizes’ social media accounts, while the films created for last year’s Booker Prize won a Drum Award for Marketing in the Culture category.
The new films, which will be shown at the winner ceremony on November 26, are directed by Hannah Berry George. They premiered at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on October 7.
Booker Prize 2023 shortlisted books
Caitríona Balfe reads from Prophet Song
About the book and actor
About the book:
A mother faces a terrible choice in Prophet Song, Paul Lynch’s exhilarating, propulsive and confrontational portrait of a society on the brink.
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her doorstep. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police want to speak with her husband. Things are falling apart. Ireland is in the grip of a government that is taking a turn towards tyranny. And as the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society – assailed by unpredictable forces beyond her control and forced to do whatever it takes to keep her family together.
About the actor:
Caitríona Balfe is best known for her leading role as Claire Randall in the internationally successful Starz/Sony series Outlander, for which she has won a Scottish BAFTA, an IFTA and earned four Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. Her other television credits include Netflix’s Dark Crystal prequel and the mini-series The Beauty Inside. Caitríona starred in Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar and BAFTA winning feature film Belfast and her performance earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Other film credits include Oscar-winning feature Ford V. Ferrari alongside Matt Damon and Christian Bale, and Money Monster alongside George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
Alfred Enoch reads from If I Survive You
About the book and actor
About the book:
Jonathan Escoffery’s debut, If I Survive You, is an exhilarating novel-in-stories that pulses with style, heart and barbed humour, while unravelling what it means to carve out an existence between cultures, homes and pay cheques.
In 1979, as political violence consumes their native Kingston, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami. But they soon learn that the welcome in America will be far from warm. Trelawny, their youngest son, comes of age in a society that regards him with suspicion and confusion. Their eldest son Delano’s longing for a better future for his own children is equalled only by his recklessness in trying to secure it. As both brothers navigate the obstacles littered in their path – an unreliable father, racism, a financial crisis and Hurricane Andrew – they find themselves pitted against one another. Will their rivalry be the thing that finally tears their family apart?
About the actor:
Alfred Enoch was most recently seen in Sky Cinema’s original film, This Is Christmas, opposite Kaya Scodelario and Timothy Spall. He will soon be seen in period thriller The Critic alongside Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton. He will also be seen in The Couple Next Door for Channel 4. His other major film credits include his leading role in the Brazilian dystopian feature Executive Order, football mental health feature Tigers, and he played Dean Thomas in the globally renowned Harry Potter series. On TV, he appeared in Apple’s Foundation and played the leading role in Season 2 of the BBC’s Trust Me. He also played Wes in Shonda Rhimes’ hit ABC series, How to Get Away with Murder.
On stage, Alfred was most recently Orlando in Shakespeare’s As You Like It at @sohoplace, directed by Olivier Award nominated Josie Rourke. In 2021 he played Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Other theatre credits include the West End revival of Red alongside Alfred Molina, and the Young Vic and Manchester International Festival production of Tree alongside Sinead Cusack.
Bel Powley reads from Study for Obedience
About the book and actor
About the book:
In her accomplished and unsettling second novel, Study for Obedience, Sarah Bernstein explores themes of prejudice, abuse and guilt through the eyes of a singularly unreliable narrator.
A woman moves from the place of her birth to a ‘remote northern country’ to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. Soon after she arrives, a series of unfortunate events occurs: collective bovine hysteria; the death of a ewe and her nearly-born lamb; a local dog’s phantom pregnancy; a potato blight.
She notices that the community’s suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed particularly in her case. She feels their hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother’s property. Inside the house, although she tends to her brother and his home with the utmost care and attention, he too begins to fall ill…
About the actor:
Bel Powley can currently be seen in the leading role in the Disney+ series A Small Light, a story which centres around Miep Gies, the young woman who hid Anne Frank and her family during the Second World War. Her other television credits include starring roles in Apple’s The Morning Show, the BBC/Working Title series Everything I Know About Love, and Amazon/BBC limited series Informer. Her film credits include the leading role in Sony Classics’ award-winning Diary of a Teenage Girl, and starring roles in Judd Apatow’s Universal comedy The King Staten Island and Sony’s White Boy Rick.
Susan Lynch reads from The Bee Sting
About the book and actor
About the book:
A patch of ice on the road, a casual favour to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil – can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life?
Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under - but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker. His exasperated wife Imelda is selling off her jewellery on eBay while half-heartedly dodging the attentions of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike. Meanwhile, teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way to her final exams. And 12-year-old PJ, in debt to local sociopath ‘Ears’ Moran, is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away.
In Paul Murray’s brilliant tragicomic saga, The Bee Sting, the Barnes family is definitely in trouble. So where did it all go wrong? And if the story has already been written – is there still time to find a happy ending?
About the actor:
Susan Lynch is currently shooting Steven Knight’s A Thousand Blows for Disney+. Prior to this, Susan shot Irish feature Bring Them Down, opposite Barry Keoghan, and earlier this year appeared in the third and final series of the BBC’s Happy Valley, alongside James Norton and Sarah Lancashire. She is also known for her BIFA-winning role of Mary in 16 Years of Alcohol, and her multi-award winning performance in Nora. She is well recognised for her work on stage; her most recent role being in Faith, Hope & Charity at the National Theatre, directed by Alexander Zeldin.
Paterson Joseph reads from This Other Eden
About the book and actor
About the book:
Full of lyricism and power, Paul Harding’s spellbinding novel celebrates the hopes, dreams and resilience of those deemed not to fit in a world brutally intolerant of difference.
Inspired by historical events, This Other Eden tells the story of Apple Island: an enclave off the coast of the United States where castaways - in flight from society and its judgment – have landed and built a home. In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey arrives on the island with his Irish wife, Patience, to make a life together there. More than a century later, the Honeys’ descendants remain, alongside an eccentric, diverse band of neighbours. Then comes the intrusion of ‘civilization’: officials determine to ‘cleanse’ the island. A missionary schoolteacher selects one light-skinned boy to save. The rest will succumb to the authorities’ institutions - or cast themselves on the waters in a new Noah’s Ark…
About the actor:
Paterson Joseph was born and raised in London and trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He’s worked extensively on screen, television and in the theatre. He will next be seen in Wonka, alongside Timothée Chalemet, directed by Paul King. Paterson’s previous screen credits include: Anansi Boys, That Dirty Black Bag, Vigil, The Mosquito Coast, Inside No.9, The End Of The F***ing World, Noughts And Crosses, Avenue 5, Grantchester, Peep Show, Green Wing, In The Name Of The Father and The Beach. On stage, Paterson’s theatre credits include A Christmas Carol (Old Vic), Troilus and Cressida, The Last Days of Don Juan, King Lear (RSC); Elmina’s Kitchen, St Joan, Emperor Jones and The Royal Hunt of the Sun (National Theatre).
Nina Wadia reads from Western Lane
About the book and actor
About the book:
Chetna Maroo’s tender and moving debut, Western Lane, is a novel about grief, sisterhood, a teenage girl’s struggle to transcend herself – and squash.
Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo. But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a 13-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.
About the actor:
Nina Wadia is known for portraying Zainab Masood in the BBC’s EastEnders, Aunty Noor in Citizen Khan, Mrs Hussein in the BBC comedy Still Open All Hours and for starring in the BBC Two sketch show Goodness Gracious Me. She appeared in the Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and in Stephen Merchant’s comedy drama The Outlaws. She also appeared in the YouTube sci-fi series Origin and the BBC soap opera Doctors. Additionally, she appeared in the Hindi-language romantic comedy Namaste London, was a contestant on the BBC series Strictly Come Dancing in 2021, and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to entertainment and charity.
