Kiran Desai’s novel shortlisted for Booker Prize 2025

• Kiran Desai’s novel ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’ has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

• The shortlist of six novels has been selected by the 2025 judging panel, chaired by critically acclaimed writer and 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle. 

• The 53-year-old Delhi-born author had won the Booker Prize in 2006 for her novel ‘The Inheritance of Loss’.

• Kiran Desai is the only previous Booker winner on this year’s shortlist. 

• If Desai wins this year, she would become only the fifth double winner in the prize’s 56-year history. Her mother, Anita Desai, was shortlisted for the Booker three times. 

• The winner of the Booker Prize 2025 will be announced at a ceremony in London on November 10. The winning author will receive £50,000.

Booker Prize 2025 shortlist:

i) Flashlight - Susan Choi

ii) The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny - Kiran Desai

iii) Audition - Katie Kitamura

iv) The Rest of Our Lives - Ben Markovits

v) The Land in Winter - Andrew Miller

vi) Flesh - David Szalay.

• Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a globetrotting epic featuring a pair of young Indians whose paths cross and uncross over several years before they eventually fall in love. With over 670 pages, it is the longest book on the list.

The Booker Prize

• The Booker Prize awards any work of long form fiction originally written in English and published in the UK and Ireland in the year of the prize, regardless of the nationality of their author. The work of long form fiction must be an original work in English (not a translation) and published by a registered UK or Irish imprint. Self-published works of long form fiction are not eligible. 

• The Booker Prize is worth £50,000 to the winner. It is awarded to the author of the best, eligible full-length work of long form fiction in the opinion of the judges. In addition, £2,500 is awarded to each of the six shortlisted authors.

• The Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in 1969.

• Past winners of the Booker include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Yann Martel.

International Booker Prize

• The International Booker Prize, formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize, has been awarded since 2005, when it was won by Albanian writer Ismail Kadare.

• It is awarded annually for a single book, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. 

• It is a sister prize to the Booker Prize.