Books & Bookmen
n WHEN the 2025 Booker prize panel was announced, chaired by former winner Roddy Doyle (a career-long Jonathan Cape novelist) and including Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, a cynical commentator might have speculated that Cape authors and New Yorkers would do well. And, it turns out, they have.
Susan Choi’s Flashlight and David Szalay’s Flesh are Cape’s contenders, while Big Apple residents Choi, Katie Kitamura (Audition) and Kiran Desai (The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny) all survived the cruel pruning of the longlist – surprisingly in some cases. Kitamura’s book, in particular, divided reviewers and found few champions in the UK. As there’s only one British judge (writer-critic Chris Power), our cynical commentator might also have hazarded a guess that UK novelists would do badly. That also proved to be true: top home-win hopes Alan Hollinghurst and Ian McEwan were kicked out early doors, and Andrew Miller (The Land in Winter) was left as the sole straightforward Briton in the contest.