29-07-2025
'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'.
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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
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