logo
#

Latest news with #ManBookerPrize

Remembering MI5's first female boss and author Dame Stella Rimington
Remembering MI5's first female boss and author Dame Stella Rimington

Euronews

time2 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Euronews

Remembering MI5's first female boss and author Dame Stella Rimington

Dame Stella Rimington, the trailblazing first female director general of MI5, the UK's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, died aged 90. She was an accomplished author and also widely credited as the inspiration for Dame Judi Dench's M, the chief of sister agency MI6, in the James Bond films. Dame Stella passed away on Sunday night, with her family later releasing the following statement: "She died surrounded by her beloved family and dogs and determinedly held on to the life she loved until her last breath." Ken McCallum, MI5's current chief, said she was 'the first avowed female head of any intelligence agency in the world' and praised her for breaking 'through longstanding barriers'. She was, he added: 'A visible example of the importance of diversity in leadership.' Born Stella Whitehouse in South Norwood on 13 May 1935, Rimington was appointed deputy director general in 1991 and then director general a year later. She held the post from 1992 to 1996. She became the first head of MI5 to be publicly identified when appointed and used her time as director general to bring the service out of the shadows. After leaving MI5 in 1996, Rimington was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II. In her first interview after leaving the agency, with the Guardian, Rimington said she was drawn to the world of espionage in spite of 'all of these tweedy guys with pipes'. 'I still thought the essence of the cold war and spies and stuff was fun. You know, going around listening to people's telephones and opening their mail and stuff,' she added. Following her tenure at MI5, the ex-spymaster began a career as a novelist and even chaired the judging panel for the Man Booker Prize for literature. Her first book, 'Open Secret', was a memoir published in 2001. It created a stir, as the UK government at the time weren't pleased about the plublication of a tell-all book. A series of novels followed, including eight with the character of Liz Carlyle, a fictional MI5 officer. In 2022, Rimington published 'The Devil's Bargain,' which introduced a new heroine, CIA officer Manon Tyler. Following in Rimington's footsteps in top UK intelligence posts were Eliza Manningham-Buller, who led MI5 between 2002 and 2007, and Blaise Metreweli, who was named as the first female head of MI6 in June. Dame Stella Rimington is survived by her husband, two daughters, five grandchildren, and her dogs.

2025 Booker Prize longlist revealed as 'wonderful' books left judges 'elated'
2025 Booker Prize longlist revealed as 'wonderful' books left judges 'elated'

Daily Mirror

time31-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Daily Mirror

2025 Booker Prize longlist revealed as 'wonderful' books left judges 'elated'

The wait is over as the Booker Prize longlist has finally been announced. Selected by the 2025 judging panel chaired by Roddy Doyle — a critically acclaimed writer and 1993 Booker Prize winner — the list is peppered with some returning favourites, a few impressive debutants, and a third-time lucky hopeful. Chosen out of 153 submissions, this year's longlist showcases outstanding works of long-form fiction written in English by authors of any nationality, published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025. Novelists of nine nationalities across four continents make up this year's longlist, with authors from the UK — namely Natasha Brown, Jonathan Buckley, Andrew Miller, Benjamin Wood, and Hungarian-British writer David Szalay — securing the highest number of nominations for their books. Indian author Kiran Desai has once again been nominated for the top honour, 19 years after her previous novel, The Inheritance of Loss, won the Man Booker Prize in 2006. Kiran's newest novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, has been longlisted this year. If Kiran wins this year as well, she will be only the fifth double winner in the coveted prize's history. Back in 2006, the Indian author became the then-younger Booker Prize winner. Kiran's mother, renowned author Anita Desai, has also been shortlisted for the prize three times in the past. Universal Credit households to receive new £320 Cost of Living payment this summer AIMEE WALSH: 'I met Bonnie Blue as TV show feeds rage-bait machine and earns millions' Another returning longlisted author is Tash Aw. If Tash bags this year's prize for his novel, The South, he will become the first Malaysian winner of the title. Born in Taiwan, Tash has authored five novels, three of which have been longlisted for the Booker Prize. Previously, his books, The Harmony Silk Factory and Five Star Billionaire were nominated for the prize in 2005 and 2013, respectively. Two past shortlistees — David Szalay, previously shortlisted in 2016 for his book All That Man Is, and Andrew Miller, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2001 for his novel Oxygen — have also returned as nominees this year. Maria Reva's debut novel Endling and Ledia Xhoga's debut novel Misinterpretation have also made the longlist. The six-book shortlist will be revealed at a public event at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in London on Tuesday, September 23. The winner of the 2025 Man Booker Prize will be announced at a ceremony on Monday, November 10, at Old Billingsgate in London. The winner of the prestigious prize will be awarded £50,000. Below you'll find all the books featured in this year's list.

Booker Prize 2025: A reader's guide to the 13 novels (including Kiran Desai's) on the longlist
Booker Prize 2025: A reader's guide to the 13 novels (including Kiran Desai's) on the longlist

Scroll.in

time30-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Scroll.in

Booker Prize 2025: A reader's guide to the 13 novels (including Kiran Desai's) on the longlist

The Booker Prize announced its 2025 longlist of thirteen titles on Tuesday. Indian writer Kiran Desai has been nominated for her forthcoming novel The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia, 19 years after her previous book, The Inheritance of Loss, won the Man Booker Prize in 2006. This year's judging panel is being chaired by 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle, and he'll be joined by novelist Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀; actor and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker; writer and literary critic Chris Power; and author Kiley Reid. Doyle said that the novels on the longlist 'examine the past and poke at our shaky present.' The shortlist will be announced on September 23 at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall in London. The six shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. The winner will be announced on November 10 at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London and will receive a cash prize of £50,000. The longlist represents authors of nine nationalities across four continents, with UK authors securing the highest number of nominations. Malaysian writer Tash Aw has been longlisted for the third time, while Andrew Miller and David Szalay have been shortlisted once before. Ledia Xhoga and Maria Reva have been nominated for their debut novels. This is also the first Booker longlisting for Fitzcarraldo Editions, an independent publisher which has 16 International Booker Prize nominations under its belt. Here's a quick guide to this year's longlist (all information has been sourced from the publishers). Misinterpretation, Lydia Xhoga In New York City, an Albanian interpreter cannot help but become entangled in her clients' struggles, despite her husband's cautions. When she reluctantly agrees to work with Alfred, a Kosovar torture survivor, during his therapy sessions, his nightmares stir up her own buried memories, while an impulsive attempt to help a Kurdish poet leads to a risky encounter and a reckless plan. As ill-fated decisions stack up, jeopardising the nameless narrator's marriage and mental health, she takes a spontaneous trip to reunite with her mother in Albania, where her life in the United States is put into stark relief. When she returns to face the consequences of her actions, she must question what is real and what is not. Seascraper, Benjamin Wood Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa's trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach to scrape for shrimp; spending the rest of the day selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream. When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas? Flesh, David Szalay Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman close to his mother's age – as his only companion. As these encounters shift into a clandestine relationship, István's life spirals out of control. Years later, rising through the ranks from the army to the elite circles of London's super-rich, he navigates the 21st century's tides of money and power. Torn between love, intimacy, status, and wealth, his newfound riches threaten to undo him completely. Endling, Maria Reva Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a maverick scientist who scours the country's forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to settle down and start a family of her own. What they don't know: Yeva already dates plenty of men – not for love, but to fund her work – entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they'll find docile brides untainted by feminism. Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. So begins a journey of a lifetime across a country on the brink of war: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. The Land in Winter, Andrew Miller December 1962, the West Country. Local doctor Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He's been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that's already faltering. But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards, the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel. Where do you hide when you can't leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to? The Rest of Our Lives, Ben Markovits When Tom's wife had an affair, he resolved to leave her once their children had grown up. Twelve years later, after driving his daughter to university, he remembers his pact and keeps driving West to visit friends, family and an old girlfriend. But he also has secrets of his own – trouble at work and health issues – and sometimes running away is the hardest thing to do. Audition, Katie Kitamura Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated, yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that only served to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India, fearing she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world. Flashlight, Susan Choi One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town while her father Serk, a Korean émigré, completes an academic secondment from his American university. When Louisa wakes hours later, she has washed up on the beach and her father is missing, probably drowned. The disappearance of Louisa's father shatters their small family unit. As Louisa and her American mother Anne return to the US, this traumatic event reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened to Serk slowly unravels. One Boat, Jonathan Buckley On losing her father, Teresa returns to a small town on the Greek coast – the same place she visited when grieving her mother nine years ago. She immerses herself again in the life of the town, observing the inhabitants going about their business, a quiet backdrop for her reckoning with herself. An episode from her first visit resurfaces vividly – her encounter with John, a man struggling to come to terms with the violent death of his nephew. Soon Teresa encounters some of the people she met last time around: Petros, an eccentric mechanic, whose life story may or may not be part of John's; the beautiful Niko, a diving instructor; and Xanthe, a waitress in one of the cafés on the leafy town square. They talk about their longings, regrets, the passing of time, their sense of who they are. Universality, Natasha Brown Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar. An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers, namely: Who wrote it? Why? And how much of it is true? The South, Tash Aw When his grandfather dies, a boy named Jay travels south with his family to the property he left them, a once-flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased, the fields parched from months of drought. Still, Jay's father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the son of the farm's manager, different from him in every way except for one. Out in the fields and on the streets into town, the charge between the boys intensifies. Inside the house, the other family members confront their own regrets and begin to drift apart. Like the land around them, they are powerless to resist the global forces that threaten to render their lives obsolete. Love Forms, Claire Adam Trinidad, 1980: Dawn Bishop, aged 16, leaves her home and journeys across the sea to Venezuela. There, she gives birth to a baby girl, and leaves her with nuns to be given up for adoption. Dawn tries to carry on with her life – a move to England, a marriage, a career, two sons, a divorce – but through it all, she still thinks of the child she had in Venezuela, and of what might have been. Then, forty years later, a woman from an internet forum gets in touch. She says that she might be Dawn's long-lost daughter, stirring up a complicated mix of feelings: could this be the person to give form to all the love and care a mother has left to offer?

'Relieved, elated – and maybe a bit proud': Roddy Doyle on chairing the Booker Prize panel
'Relieved, elated – and maybe a bit proud': Roddy Doyle on chairing the Booker Prize panel

The Journal

time29-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • The Journal

'Relieved, elated – and maybe a bit proud': Roddy Doyle on chairing the Booker Prize panel

THE LONGLIST FOR this year's prestigious Man Booker Prize has been released – and chair of the five-person judging panel Roddy Doyle said he's 'loved every minute' of his experience. The Dublin author is the first winner of the prize to chair the panel. Doyle won the prize in 1993 for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, a novel about a ten-year-old boy living in north Dublin and the events that happen around his age group, school, and home. The 'Booker Dozen' of 13 books feature no Irish authors, but has British, American, Canadian-Ukrainian, Trinidadian, Indian, Hungarian-British, Malaysian, and Albanian-American authors listed. The longlist has been described as containing works that encapsulate 'a vast range of global experiences'. Among the authors on the longlist are one previous winner of the prize, a third-time longlisted author, two authors previously shortlisted, two debut novelists, the first novel from an opera librettist and the twelfth from a former professional basketball player, a book that first gained acclaim as a short story, and one that is the first in a proposed quartet. Doyle described the novels as 'alive with great characters and narrative surprises' which 'examine the past and poke at our shaky present'. Advertisement He is joined on the judging panel by Booker Prize-longlisted author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀; actress, 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. Of Doyle's experience chairing the judging panel and narrowing down the submissions to the longlist, he wrote, 'it wasn't easy; at times, it was agony'. 'Seven months, 153 books – the five judges have met and decided on the 13 novels that make up the 2025 Booker longlist.' He said there were so many excellent books among the contenders that 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,' he said. '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.' He remarked on the list of locations featured amongst the novels. 'There are novels that experiment with form and others that do so less obviously… 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 full longlist: Love Forms – Claire Adam The South – Tash Aw Universality – Natasha Brown One Boat – Jonathan Buckley Flashlight – Susan Choi The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny – Kiran Desai Audition – Katie Kitamura The Rest of Our Lives – Ben Markovits The Land in Winter – Andrew Miller Endling – Maria Reva Flesh – David Szalay Seascraper – Benjamin Wood Misinterpretation – Ledia Xhoga Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store