On 15 September, the 2020 Booker Prize shortlist was revealed by the 2020 Chair of Judges Margaret Busby.
The shortlist was selected from 162 submitted books. Readers of the six chosen books will explore the tender story of a mother’s battle to save her daughter in a dystopian city made inhospitable by the climate crisis; witness a woman confronting the realities of life and morality in Zimbabwe as she descends into poverty; travel to India to unpick an unsettling mother-daughter relationship redefined by dementia; uncover the extraordinary tales of the African women who went to war during Italy’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia; find humanity and humour in the harsh realities experienced by a marginalised family in 1980s Glasgow; and question what ‘real life’ is in a fresh take on the campus novel, which offers a nuanced account of racism and homophobia.
The 2020 Booker Prize for Fiction is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland between 1 October 2019 and 30 September 2020.
The 2020 shortlist is:
- The New Wilderness by Diane Cook (Oneworld Publications)
- This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Faber & Faber)
- Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House)
- The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste (Canongate Books)
- Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Picador, Pan Macmillan)
- Real Life by Brandon Taylor (Originals, Daunt Books Publishing)