Malaysian author Tash Aw’s new book The South is among 13 semifinalists announced on Tuesday for the Booker Prize. The list features writers from nine countries across four continents.
Raised in Malaysia and educated in England, Aw has won the Whitbread, Commonwealth and O. Henry Awards, with his work translated into over 20 languages.
“To call The South a coming-of-age novel nearly misses its expanse. This is a story about heritage, the Asian financial crisis, and the relationship between one family and the land,” noted the 2025 Booker Prize judges.
Aw, who has been a Booker Prize semifinalist twice before (with The Harmony Silk Factory and Five Star Billionaire), will be the first Malaysian winner if he takes the £50,000 (RM283,000) prize for The South.
Indian author Kiran Desai, who won the Booker Prize and then didn’t publish a novel for almost two decades, is also up for the award again with her long-awaited follow-up.
The Loneliness Of Sonia And Sunny, the 677-page tale of two young Indians making their way in the United States, is Desai's first novel since The Inheritance Of Loss, which won the Booker in 2006.
Two previous finalists are up for the prize again: British writer Andrew Miller, for The Land In Winter, and Hungarian-British writer David Szalay for Flesh.
Five of the contenders are from Britain: Miller, Szalay, Natasha Brown (Universality), Jonathan Buckley (One Boat) and Benjamin Wood (Seascraper).
Books by US writers in the running include Susan Choi’s Flashlight, Katie Kitamura’s Audition and Ben Markovits’ The Rest Of Our Lives.
Also on the list are Misinterpretation by Albanian-American Ledia Xhoga, Love Forms by Trinidad’s Claire Adam, and Endling, a debut novel by Canadian-Ukrainian opera librettist Maria Reva.
"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,” said Irish novelist Roddy Doyle, chair of a five-member judging panel that includes actor Sarah Jessica Parker.
"All, somehow, examine identity, individual or national, and all, I think, are gripping and excellent,” he said.
Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers and is open to novels from any country published in Britain and Ireland. Last year’s winner was Orbital, by British writer Samantha Harvey.
A list of six finalists will be announced Sept 23, and this year’s winner will be crowned on Nov 10 at a ceremony in London. - AP
