On the evening of October 14th, 2019, the winners for this year’s Man Booker Prize were announced. This ceremony was unusual as it announced two winners: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (the much anticipated follow-up to the Handmaid’s Tale), and Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Born in Ontario, Canada, Atwood is a renowned writer who has been nominated for 6 Man Booker Prizes, winning twice (the first award for 2000’s the Blind Assassin). Evaristo, a British writer born in London, is a first-time nominee and winner.
The Man Booker Prize is an annual award for literary excellence held every autumn. The award is for English-language fiction books published in the British Commonwealth and Republic of Ireland. New judges for this award are selected every year, and are normally distinguished writers, critics, or figures in the literary world.
“In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades. When the van door slammed on Offred’s future at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her–freedom, prison or death. With The Testaments, the wait is over. Margaret Atwood’s sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.” -From Goodreads.com
“Teeming with life and crackling with energy – a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood. Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years. Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.” -From Goodreads.com
Here are the other books that were on the shortlist for 2019:
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy EllMann
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma
10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in the Strange World by Elif Shafak
Click here to see all of the previous winners and nominees for the Man Booker Prize!
What other excellent books have you read this year? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
Thanks for reading,
-George, FTPL
