The 2022 Booker Prize longlist will be announced on Tuesday 26th July and I have made my annual list of predictions in terms of what I think could be some strong possibilities alongside my own personal preferences, based on a few novels I have read and others I have heard about. As ever, it’s impossible to know which novels have been submitted for consideration but those published in the UK between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022 will be eligible. My longlist predictions lists in 2020 and 2021 included the eventual winners in those years: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and The Promise by Damon Galgut. The question is, can I make it three years in a row…?
Talking of recent winners, Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart could be a strong contender following the Scottish author’s Booker Prize win a couple of years ago. Several authors who have been shortlisted in previous years also have new books out. Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet is definitely one of my preferences and is a cleverly written novel consisting of a fictional biography of a radical psychoanalyst and the “discovered” notebooks of one of his patients. To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara is a sprawling epic spanning three centuries in an alternative version of New York.
A place on the longlist for The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell could make up for several previous omissions. Her latest work of historical fiction out at the end of August looks at the life of Lucrezia de Medici in Renaissance Italy. Others novels by those who are long overdue some recognition by the Booker Prize include Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson which will be published in September and is set in the 1920s in London and The Fell by Sarah Moss which is a short but affecting state-of-the-nation novel set during the second lockdown in the Peak District.
Irish novelists often have a strong showing in the Booker Prize longlist. The Colony by Audrey Magee examines the impact of colonialism on a small island off the west coast of Ireland when a French linguist and an English painter come to visit. The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan explores four generations of women in Tipperary and will be out in August.
Among debuts, I have heard lots of good things about The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn which is set between the First and Second World War in Dorset. Likewise, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy is another first novel receiving lots of critical acclaim and is about a couple who have an affair during the Troubles in Belfast in 1975.
Among novelists based in north America, Trust by Hernan Diaz has been described as a literary puzzle, and consists of four books within a book, supposedly about a New York financier but also much more than that. Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen is the first book in a trilogy, and deals with Franzen’s specialist subject of dysfunctional Midwestern families. Fight Night by Miriam Toews has been receiving lots of positive reviews and is about a nine-year-old girl living with her pregnant mother in Canada.
Which books would you like to see on the Booker Prize longlist this year?
A Little Blog of Books 
I dithered about adding Trust to my own wish list but decided not although I thought it was excellent. Other than that, we overlap on six. Looking forward to seeing what the judges come up with on Tuesday.
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I have been hearing a lot of good things about Trust!
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I have a few of these on reservation at the library and am hoping they come through soon so if they are longlisted I can at least read a few of them.
I’d like to see Donal Ryan make another appearance on the longlist, he deserves more attention. It would be quite an achievement if Douglas Stuart was nominated so soon after his win.
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I haven’t actually read any of Donal Ryan’s books, but I have heard only good things about them so I should probably rectify that at some point!
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I am looking forward to the results. Looks like you have a good chance at getting many of these correct.
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PLEASE don’t let it be Franzen… he’s such a misogynist! I hate his books.
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I liked Freedom but didn’t get on with Purity or The Corrections…
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An unusually high number of authors that I love on this list, seems like they have all weirdly come together.
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Fingers crossed!
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I loved The Colony, Trust and Case Study. Would love to see Spies in Canaan by David Park in the list.
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I haven’t read any of your choices, but I do love Ryan and am desperate to read his new one. I bought myself the Toews, and want to read the Kennedy too. As for others – I have no opinion, but I’m sure some of your picks will be there. I’d be surprised if they don’t include the new Ian McEwan which is getting a good build-up prior to publishing as a return to form…
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Yes, I considered including the new McEwan book and look forward to reading it – my predictions list could easily have been twice as long!
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The Booker race has really snuck up on me this year. I feel totally unprepared for tomorrow’s announcement, and selfishly hope that the nominees are mostly books I’ve already read, or have no interest in, so that I don’t feel obligated to catch up. Some great ideas here! I mentioned on Susan’s post that I’d also be pleased to see These Days by Lucy Caldwell, Groundskeeping by Lee Cole, How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, and/or French Braid by Anne Tyler longlisted.
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Yes, they are all strong possibilities too – my predictions list could easily have been twice as long!
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