The Booker Prize is, thankfully, no longer ‘pale, male and stale’

Not long to go now until the Olympics of English-language literature, the announcement of the Booker Prize winner on November 12. The winner will receive £50,000 ($97,000), a trophy named Iris (after Iris Murdoch) and perhaps most importantly, can expect their career to be transformed.

Notable aspects of this year’s shortlist? Five of the six books are by women; three authors have been nominated before, and two shortlisted before; there’s one debut novel (The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, the first Dutch author nominated); and if there’s one single theme they all share, the judges say, it’s “the gravitational forces exerted on us by the places we call home”.

Percival Everett is hotly tipped to win this year’s Booker Prize for his novel JamesCredit: Getty

Naturally, I’m gunning for Charlotte Wood, who calls Australia home, and is the first Australian in 10 years to reach the shortlist. This is not entirely for patriotic reasons: I reckon Stone Yard Devotional, the tale of a non-religious woman who seeks refuge in a community of nuns, is a gem of a novel, a seemingly quiet story with a disturbing power, and I endorse the judges’ verdict: “It’s a book we can’t wait to put into the hands of readers.”

However, so far, I’ve read only two novels on the shortlist, so I can’t do comparisons (the other one I’ve read, Canadian writer Anne Michaels’ slim volume Held, is also a superbly written gem, though a little less accessible to the average reader).

The bookies’ favourite is James, a tour-de-force from American writer Percival Everett: a reimagining of Mark Twain’s classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the point of view of Jim the runaway slave. If Booker means big books about topical issues, this novel will win.

The other books? Orbital by Samantha Harvey and Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner.

Charlotte Wood has been shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize.Credit: Henry Simmons

As many of us can recall, the Booker has weathered plenty of attacks over the years. Critics have accused it of being elitist and irrelevant, “pale, male and stale” (definitely not true this year). Some were horrified by the 2014 decision to open the award to US writers, but the Americans haven’t taken over, as feared. However, the hardest task continues to be walking the tightrope between literary kudos and popular acclaim, with varying success.

Gaby Wood, a writer, former judge and chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, has posted a revealing essay on the Booker website about how the judges are chosen and how they arrive at their decisions.

According to Wood, the choice of judges these days is a very careful process, and considers many factors. Gone are the days when politicians ruled the panel: the prize has returned to the idea of a jury of peers, but has also expanded its definition of peer. Recent panels have included artists and graphic novelists, crime fiction writers and a speculative fiction writer, and there’s now a filmmaker (poet Caleb Femi) on next year’s panel.

It’s the group dynamic that matters, Wood writes, not individuals. They need to trust each other. And it’s a long haul: their discussions last the best part of a year. They come together once a month to talk about 20 to 30 books: “They often change each other’s minds.”

The 2024 panel comprises writer and ceramicist Edmund de Waal, novelist Sara Collins, The Guardian fiction editor Justine Jordan, writer and professor Yiyun Li and musician, composer and producer Nitin Sawhney.

Whatever we think of their verdict, we can be sure it’s carefully chosen. But the judges also need courage and conviction. They can’t please all the people all the time, and I don’t think they should even try.

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