Six novels make the 2025 Booker Prize shortlist
Kiran Desai, David Szalay and Andrew Miller were among six established novelists on the 2025 Booker Prize shortlist, which contained no debuts.
The shortlist for the 2025 Booker Prize was announced in London on 23 September 2025. The six books were Flashlight by Susan Choi, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, Audition by Katie Kitamura, The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits, The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller and Flesh by David Szalay.
Half of the shortlisted writers had been there before. Desai won the prize in 2006, Miller was shortlisted in 2001 and Szalay in 2016. Three of the six authors are American, which renewed the familiar debate about the prize since it opened to writers of any nationality in 2014. There were no debut novels on the list.
Each shortlisted author received £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. The judges, chaired by Roddy Doyle, were due to name the £50,000 winner on 10 November 2025.
This was a shortlist of writers in the middle or later stages of long careers, and it is worth saying plainly that such lists are the norm rather than the exception. For newer writers the lesson is patience: several of these authors were first noticed by the prize many years and several books ago. For readers, it is a set of six confident novels in quite different registers.
Sources: NPR: The Booker shortlist honors authors 'in total command' of their craft; The Irish Times: Booker Prize 2025 shortlist.