Man Booker Prize Winning Novels of 21st Century

2. The Man Booker Prize for Fiction (formerly
known as the Booker-McConnell Prize and
commonly known simply as the Booker Prize) is a
literary prize awarded each year for the best
original novel, written in the English language,
and published in the UK. The winner of the Man
Booker Prize is generally assured of
international renown and success; therefore, the
prize is of great significance for the book
trade.From its inception, only Commonwealth,
Irish, and Zimbabwean citizens were eligible to
receive the prize; in 2013, however, this

3. On 3 December 1976, just weeks before the
general election and two days before Bob
Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert
to ease political tensions, seven gunmen from
West Kingston stormed his house with
machine guns blazing. Marley survived and
went on to performat the free concert, but
the next day he left the country, and didn’t
return fortwo years. Not a lot was recorded
about the fate of the seven gunmen, but much
has been said, whispered and sung about in
the streets of West Kingston, with
information surfacing at odd times, only to
sinkinto rumour and misinformation.
Inspired by this near-mythic event, A Brief
History of Seven Killings takes the formof an
imagined oral biography, told by ghosts,
witnesses, killers, members of parliament,
drug dealers, conmen, beauty queens, FBI and
CIA agents, reporters, journalists, and even
Keith Richards' drug dealer. Marlon James’s
bold undertaking traverses strange landscapes
and shady characters, as motivations are
examined – and questions asked – in this
compelling novel of monumental scope and
ambition.
Genre : Historical/
Experimental
Nationality : Jamaica

4. Richard Flanagan's story — of Dorrigo
Evans, an Australian doctorhaunted by
a love affairwith his uncle's wife —
journeys from the caves of Tasmanian
trappers in the early twentieth century
to a crumbling pre-warbeachside hotel,
froma Thai jungle prison to a Japanese
snow festival, from the Changi gallows
to a chance meeting of lovers on the
Sydney HarbourBridge.
Taking its title from 17th-century haiku
poet Basho's travel journal, The Narrow
Road To The Deep North is about the
impossibility of love. At its heart is one
day in a Japanese slave labourcamp in
August 1943. As the day builds to its
horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles
and fails in his quest to save the lives of
his fellow POWs, a man is killed forno
reason, and a love story unfolds.
Genre : Historical
Novel
Nationality : Australia

5. It is 1866, and young WalterMoody has
come to make his fortune upon the New
Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night
of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense
gathering of twelve local men who have
met in secret to discuss a series of
unexplained events: A wealthy man has
vanished, a prostitute has tried to end
herlife, and an enormous fortune has
been discovered in the home of a
luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn
into the mystery: a networkof fates and
fortunes that is as complex and
exquisitely ornate as the night sky.
Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-
century world of shipping, banking, and
gold rush boom and bus, The
Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed,
fiendishly cleverghost story and a
gripping page-turner.
Genre : Historical
Novel
Nationality : New Zealand

6. Though he battled forseven years to
marry her, Henry is disenchanted with
Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him
a son and hersharp intelligence and
audacious will alienate his old friends
and the noble families of England. When
the discarded Katherine dies in exile
fromthe court, Anne stands starkly
exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.
At a word fromHenry, Thomas
Cromwell is ready to bring her down.
Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is
ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while
the demure Jane Seymourstands
waiting herturn forthe poisoned
wedding ring. But Anne and her
powerful family will not yield without a
ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's
"Bring Up the Bodies" follows the
dramatic trial of the queen and her
suitors for adultery and treason. To
defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally
with his natural enemies, the papist
aristocracy. What price will he pay for
Anne's head?
Genre : Historical Novel
Nationality : United Kingdom

7. Tony Websterand his clique
first met Adrian Finn at
school. Sex-hungry and
book-hungry, they would
navigate the girl-less sixth
formtogether, trading in
affectations, in-jokes,
rumourand wit. Maybe
Adrian was a little more
serious than the others,
certainly more intelligent,
but they all swore to stay
friends forlife.
Now Tony is retired. He's had
a careerand a single
marriage, a calmdivorce.
He's certainly nevertried to
hurt anybody. Memory,
though, is imperfect. It can
always throw up surprises, as
a lawyer's letteris about to
prove.
Genre : Novel
Nationality :
UnitedKingdom

8. Julian Treslove, a professionally
unspectacular former BBC radio producer,
and SamFinkler, a popular Jewish
philosopher, writer, and television
personality, are old school friends. Despite
a prickly relationship and very different
lives, they've neverlost touch with each
other, or with theirformerteacher, Libor
Sevcik.
Dining together one night at Sevcik's
apartment--the two Jewish widowers and
the unmarried Gentile, Treslove--the men
share a sweetly painful evening, reminiscing
on a time before they had loved and lost,
before they had prized anything greatly
enough to fearthe loss of it. But as
Treslove makes his way home, he is
attacked and mugged outside a violin
dealer's window. Treslove is convinced the
crime was a misdirected act of anti-
Semitism, and in its aftermath, his whole
sense of self will ineluctably change.
The FinklerQuestion is a funny, furious,
unflinching novel of friendship and loss,
exclusion and belonging, and the wisdom
and humanity of maturity.
Genre : Comic Novel
Nationality : United
Kingdom

9. England in the 1520s is a
heartbeat from disaster. If the
king dies without a male heir,
the country could be destroyed
by civil war. Henry VIII wants to
annul his marriage of twenty
years and marry Anne Boleyn.
The pope and most of Europe
opposes him. Into this impasse
steps Thomas Cromwell: a
wholly original man, a charmer
and a bully, both idealist and
opportunist, astute in reading
people, and implacable in his
ambition. But Henry is volatile:
one day tender, one day
murderous. Cromwell helps him
breakthe opposition, but what
will be the price of his triumph?Genre : Historical Novel
Nationality : United Kingdom

10. The white tigerof this novel is
Balram Halwai, a poorIndian villager
whose great ambition leads him to
the zenith of Indian business culture,
the world of the Bangalore
entrepreneur. On the occasion of the
president of China’s impending trip
to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter
to himdescribing his transformation
and his experience as driverand
servant to a wealthy Indian family,
which he thinks exemplifies the
contradictions and complications of
Indian society.
The White Tigerrecalls The Death of
Vishnu and Bangkok8 in ambition,
scope, and narrative genius, with a
mischief and personality all its own.
Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing,
and utterly contemporary, this novel
is an international publishing
sensation and a startling, provocative
debut.
Genre : Novel
Nationality : India

11. Anne Enright is a dazzling writerof
international stature and one of Ireland’s
most singular voices. Now she delivers The
Gathering, a moving, evocative portrait of a
large Irish family and a shot of fresh blood
into the Irish literary tradition, combining
the lyricismof the old with the shockof the
new. The nine surviving children of the
Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the
wake of their wayward brother, Liam,
drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica,
collects the body and keeps the dead man
company, guarding the secret she shares with
him—something that happened in their
grandmother’s house in the winterof 1968.
As Enright traces the line of betrayal and
redemption through three generations her
distinctive intelligence twists the world a
fraction and gives it backto us in a new and
unforgettable light. The Gathering is a
daring, witty, and insightful family epic,
clarified through Anne Enright’s unblinking
eye. It is a novel about love and
disappointment, about how memories warp
and secrets fester, and how fate is written in
the body, not in the stars.
Genre : Novel
Nationality : Ireland

12. In a crumbling, isolated house at
the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga
in the Himalayas lives an
embittered judge who wants
only to retire in peace, when his
orphaned granddaughter, Sai,
arrives on his doorstep. The
judge’s cookwatches overher
distractedly, forhis thoughts are
often on his son, Biju, who is
hopscotching fromone gritty
New Yorkrestaurant to another.
Kiran Desai’s brilliant novel,
published to huge acclaim, is a
story of joy and despair. Her
characters face numerous
choices that majestically
illuminate the consequences of
colonialismas it collides with
the modern world.Genre : Novel
Nationality : India

13. The brilliant new novel by the Booker-
shortlisted authorof Shroud and The
Bookof Evidence, John Banville is,
quite simply, one of the greatest
novelists writing in the English
language today. When Max Morden
returns to the coastal town where he
spent a holiday in his youth he is both
escaping from a recent loss and
confronting a distant trauma. The
Grace family appearthat long ago
summeras if from anotherworld.
Drawn to the Grace twins, Chloe and
Myles, Max soon finds himself
entangled in theirlives, which are as
seductive as they are unsettling. What
ensues will haunt him forthe rest of
his years and shape everything that is
to follow. John Banville is one of the
most sublime writers working in the
English language. Utterly compelling,
profoundly moving and illuminating,
The Sea is quite possibly the best
thing he has everwritten.
Genre : Novel
Nationality : Ireland

14. In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old
NickGuest moves into an attic roomin the
Notting Hill home of the Feddens:
conservative Memberof Parliament
Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their
two children, Toby-whomNickhad idolized
at Oxford-and Catherine, highly critical of
her family's assumptions and ambitions.
As the boomyears of the eighties unfold,
Nick, an innocent in the world of politics
and money, finds his life altered by the
rising fortunes of this glamorous family.
His two vividly contrasting love affairs,
one with a young blackclerkand one with
a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the
dangers and rewards of his own private
pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling
to Nickas the desire forpower and riches
among his friends.
Richly textured, emotionally charged,
disarmingly comic, this U.K. bestseller is a
major workby one of our finest writers.
Genre : Historical Novel
Nationality : United Kingdom

15. Fifteen-year-old Vernon
Gregory Little is in
trouble, and it has
something to do with the
recent massacre of 16
students at his high
school. Soon, the quirky
backwaterof Martirio,
barbecue capital of Texas,
is flooded with wannabe
CNN hacks, eagerfora
scapegoat.
Genre : BlackComedy
Nationality : Australia

16. Life of Pi is a fantasy
adventure novel by Yann
Martel published in 2001.
The protagonist, Piscine
Molitor"Pi"Patel, a Tamil
boy fromPondicherry,
explores issues of
spirituality and practicality
from an early age. He
survives 227 days aftera
shipwreckwhile stranded on
a boat in the Pacific Ocean
with a Bengal tigernamed
Richard Parker.
Genre : Fantasy and
Adventure novel
Nationality : canada

17. In True History of the Kelly Gang,
the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for
himself, scribbling his narrative on
errant scraps of paperin
semiliterate but magically
descriptive prose as he flees from
the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is
nothing but a monstrous criminal, a
thief and a murderer. To his own
people, the lowly class of ordinary
Australians, the bushrangeris a
hero, defying the authority of the
English to direct theirlives.
Indentured by his bootleggermother
to a famous horse thief (who was
also herlover), Ned saw his first
prison cell at 15 and by the age of
26 had become the most wanted
man in the wild colony of Victoria,
taking overwhole towns and defying
the law until he was finally captured
and hanged. Here is a classic outlaw
tale, made alive by the skill of a
great novelist.
Genre :
Historical
Novel
Nationality : Australia

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