Canadian author Sarah Bernstein longlisted for $84K Booker Prize

Canadian author Sarah Bernstein is among the 13 authors longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. 

The £50,000 (approx. $84,816 Cdn) prize annually recognizes the best original novel written in the English language and published in the U.K.

Bernstein is longlisted for Study for Obedience.

The novel explores themes of guilt, abuse and prejudice through the eyes of its unreliable narrator. In it, a woman leaves her hometown to move to a 'remote northern country' to be a housekeeper for her brother, whose wife recently decided to leave him. Soon after her arrival, the community is struck by unusual events from collective bovine hysteria to a potato blight. 

When the locals direct their growing suspicions of incomers at her their hostility grows more palpable.

Bernstein is a scholar and writer who was born in Montreal and now teaches literature and creative writing in Scotland. She was recently named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.

Among the other longlisted writers is Nigerian author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, who is nominated for her novel A Spell of Good Things.

A Spell of Good Things, is ambitious in scope, juxtaposing the stories of two families from very different circumstances, whose lives tragically intersect. It's been praised as a compelling "state-of-the-nation" saga, reflecting Nigerian society back to itself.

Adébáyọ̀ made a stunning debut with her 2017 novel, Stay with Me — a dramatic story about marriage, family and polygamy, love and loyalty, set against a time of political turmoil in Nigeria.

LISTEN | Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ on Writers & Company: 

Writers and Company56:33Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀'s politically charged fiction paints an intimate portrait of contemporary Nigerian life

It was shortlisted for the U.K.'s Women's Prize for Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize and other awards, named a best book of the year by the Guardian, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, NPR and others, and was translated into 20 languages.

• Eleanor Wachtel to chair 2024 International Booker Prize jury

This year's Booker Prize is chaired by two-time Booker-shortlisted Canadian author Esi Edugyan. She is joined on the judging panel by actor, writer and director Adjoa Andoh; poet, lecturer, editor and critic Mary Jean Chan; author and professor James Shapiro; and actor and writer Robert Webb.

"The list is defined by its freshness — by the irreverence of new voices, by the iconoclasm of established ones. All 13 novels cast new light on what it means to exist in our time, and they do so in original and thrilling ways. Their range is vast, both in subject and form: they shocked us, made us laugh, filled us with anguish, but above all they stayed with us," said Edugyan in a press statement.

The complete longlist is:

• A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ ̀
• Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry
• Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
• If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
• How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
• Pearl  by Siân Hughes 
• All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
• Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
• In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
• Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
• The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
• The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

The 13 books on this year's longlist were selected from 163 books published between Oct. 1, 2022 and Sept. 30, 2023 and submitted to the prize by publishers.

The six-book shortlist will be announced on Thursday, Sept. 21 at an event at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The shorlisted writers will receive £2,500 (approx. $4,239 Cdn) and a specially bound copy of their book. 

Ahead of the shortlist announcement, the Booker Prizes will be launching a Booker Prize Book Club for readers around the world to explore the list together.

The 2023 winner will be announced at an award ceremony on Sunday, Nov. 26.

Since 2013, authors from any nationality have been eligible but no Canadians were recognized for the 2022 prize. Canadian authors Mary Lawson and Rachel Cusk made the Booker Prize longlist in 2021.

Margaret Atwood shared the 2019 prize with British novelist Bernardine Evaristo. Atwood was recognized for her novel The Testaments, and Evaristo for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. They split the prize money evenly.

Two other Canadians have won the prize since its inception in 1969: Michael Ondaatje in 1992 for The English Patient and Yann Martel in 2002 for Life of Pi.