The 2025 longlist for the Booker Prize—the world’s most significant award for a single work of fiction—has been announced.
The ‘Booker Dozen’ of 13 books features five British authors, while also encapsulating a vast range of global experiences. They transport readers to a farm in southern Malaysia, a Hungarian housing estate and a small coastal town in Greece. They shine a light on the lives of Koreans in postcolonial Japan, a homesick Indian in snowy Vermont, a Kosovar torture survivor living in New York, a shrimp fisherman in the north of England, a mother’s search for a child given up for adoption in Venezuela and even endangered snails in contemporary Ukraine. They reimagine the great American road trip as a slow-burning mid-life crisis and take us into the heart of the UK’s coldest winter.
The longlist
- Love Forms by Claire Adam
- The South by Tash Aw
- Universality by Natasha Brown
- One Boat by Jonathan Buckley
- Flashlight by Susan Choi
- The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
- Audition by Katie Kitamura
- The Rest of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovits
- The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
- Endling by Maria Reva
- Flesh by David Szalay
- Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
- Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga
The judges
The longlist has been selected by the 2025 judging panel, chaired by critically acclaimed writer and 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle. Doyle, who is the first Booker Prize winner to chair the panel, is joined by Booker Prize-longlisted novelist Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀; award-winning actor, producer and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker; writer, broadcaster and literary critic Chris Power; and New York Times bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author Kiley Reid.
Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize 2025 Chair of judges, says:
Seven months, 153 books – the five judges have met and decided on the 13 novels that make up the 2025 Booker longlist. It wasn’t easy; at times, it was agony. There were so many contenders, so many excellent books, saying goodbye to some of them felt personal, almost cruel. But I loved every minute of the experience, and being in the company of my fellow judges. There was a small, discreet UN peace-keeping force close at hand, but it wasn’t needed. My four colleagues are a generous, funny group but what was clear from the outset was that these are people who love – actually, who need – great books. Every decision was carefully measured; each of our books was examined with skill, wisdom and affection.
The 13 longlisted novels bring the reader to Hungary, Albania, the north of England, Malaysia, Ukraine, Korea, London, New York, Trinidad and Greece, India and the West Country. (Forgive the list, but I used to teach geography.) There are short novels and some very long ones. There are novels that experiment with form and others that do so less obviously. Some of them examine the past and others poke at our shaky present. They are all alive with great characters and narrative surprises. All, somehow, examine identity, individual or national, and all, I think, are gripping and excellent.
As I write this, I have the 13 longlisted novels on my desk, in a pile. My phone tells me that one meaning of ‘pile’ is ‘a heap of things’. It’s a wonderful heap – I don’t think I’ve seen a better one. At the end of our last, very long meeting, when we’d added the final book to the heap, we all felt relieved, elated – and maybe a bit proud.
The shortlist and winner announcements
For the first time, the shortlist of six books will be announced at a public event, to be held at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London on the evening of Tuesday, 23 September 2025. The event will feature all five judges in conversation with Booker Prize Foundation Chief Executive Gaby Wood, live readings by special guests, and the announcement of the 2025 shortlist, which will be livestreamed on the Booker Prizes channels. The six shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. Tickets can be booked here.
The announcement of the winning book for the Booker Prize 2025 will take place on Monday, 10 November
2025 at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London. The announcement will be livestreamed on the Booker Prizes’ channels. The winner receives £50,000.
For more information, visit the Booker Prizes website.
Get involved
If you work in a library or workplace and would like to promote the longlist, you can order FREE print display packs from our shop until midday, 30 July. After this date, you can still download the digital pack by following the link above.
What do you think of the 2025 longlisted titles? Which have you read and what will be added to your TBR pile? Add your comments below, or click any title above to leave a review.
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