Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction The Golden Man Booker Home Fire (winner) 2018 marked the 50th year of the Man Kamila Shamsie Booker Prize for fiction. Of all the winning Isma, Aneeka and Parvaiz are novels over the years, one from each decade siblings from an immigrant was nominated for the shortlist. family in the UK. After their  In a Free State (1971) by V.S. Naipul mother’s death Isma looked  Moon Tiger (1987) by Penelope Lively after her brother and sister.  The English Patient (1992) by Michael Now free to pursue her own Ondaatje dreams she can’t stop worrying about her  Wolf Hall (2009) by Hilary Mantel sister who she left behind, or her brother  Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) by George who has fled to pursue the jihadist legacy of Saunders a father they never knew. st From the shortlist, readers voted The English Sing, Unburied, Sing (finalist) Patient as their favourite. Jesmyn Ward

The English Patient (winner) This is a novel of how far the bonds of family Michael Ondaatje stretch, particularly when they are tested by 1 Four lives cross paths in an poverty, drugs and race. With Italian villa at the end of a loving but mostly absent the Second World War. A mother, Jojo is a 13 year old boy looking for a role model. 2018 nurse, a soldier and a thief are all troubled by the past While he finds one in his of the English patient, a grandfather where does his man who has been burnt father, about to be released Literary beyond recognition who from prison, fit in? lies in the upstairs bedroom. Awards Nobel Prize for Fiction

There was no Nobel Prize awarded for fiction The cream of the crop from this year. The academy was brought into the Pulitzer, the Man Booker, disrepute following a string of allegations of Mitcham Library sexual abuse, infighting and financial 8372 8244 the Golden Man Booker, malpractice. Instead, two laureates will be Blackwood Library the Miles Franklin and named in 2019. 8372 8255 the Baileys Women’s Prize Man Booker Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Miles Franklin Literary Award Milkman (winner) The Life to Come (winner) Less (winner) Anna Burns Michelle de Krester Andrew Sean Greer Milkman is set in Northern Island in the The stories of Pippa, Celeste and Ash are set Arthur Less is a middle aged, gay, single 1970s, a time when being interesting could in Sydney, Paris and Sri Lanka. As each comes author from San Francisco. After receiving a be dangerous. In the midst of the turmoil a to terms with their position in life, their invitation to his ex-partners wedding he young woman is hiding her boyfriend from perceptions are changed by what they chose decides it’s time to get away, embarking on a her mother and her strange encounter with to tell themselves and believe, just as the not-so-grand tour of the world, busying him- the Milkman from everyone, but she can’t perceptions of whole nations or societies self with interviews, prize-givings and writing hide from the rumours which start to fly. classes taking him from Japan to Morocco. may be changed by the stories that are told. Everything Under (shortlist) Daisy Johnson Gretel grew up on a houseboat with her mother, speaking in tongues and always wary of the mythical creature which lived in the canal. Gretel hasn’t seen her mother since she was 16. Strange memories of her In the Distance (finalist) childhood life and language resurface when Storyland (finalist) Hernan Diaz she receives a call from the hospital. Katherine McKinnon Described as a western unlike any other, this Spanning 400 years on the banks of Lake is the story of a young Swedish immigrant Illawarra, Storyland tells the tales of five separated from his brother. Stranded in people whose lives share a history of place. California with nothing to his name he sets From the 1700s to the near future, these out East, coming across all sorts of folk. In all stories reflects the connection with the land his foreignness he becomes somewhat of a shared by all Australians and the toll that legend to those who cross his path. colonialism has taken on the country. The Mars Room : A Novel (shortlist) Taboo (finalist) The Idiot (finalist) Rachel Kushner Kim Scott Elif Batuman Moving back and forth in time, Romy Hall’s In rural South Western Australia the Noongar Selin is an undergraduate at Harvard story is that of a poor young woman in people return to a taboo place for the first University who is struggling to adjust to America. In the present day Romy is serving time, a place where a massacre of their college life after her upbringing as the two life sentences for killing her stalker. In ancestors occurred decades earlier. As they daughter of two highly successful Turkish her past we learn of her childhood abuse, her walk through the site they reconnect with immigrants. The idiot is a coming of age apathetic mother, her work in strip club their country through lore and language novel of a young woman who tries to live and called the Mars Room, and the one joy she passed down from older generations. experience life through literature. has in the world, her son Jackson.