Indian-origin author Avni Doshi among six in shortlist for 2020 Man Booker Prize

London, September 15, 2020

India-origin writer Avni Doshi, based in the United States, is among the six writers shortlisted for the 2020 Man Booker Prize for Literature with her book "Burnt Sugar" (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House).

The other writers in the shortlist announced here this evening are: Diane Cook (USA), The New Wilderness (Oneworld Publications); Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe), This Mournable Body (Faber & Faber); Maaza Mengiste (Ethiopia/USA), The Shadow King (Canongate Books); Douglas Stuart (Scotland/USA), Shuggie Bain (Picador, Pan Macmillan); and Brandon Taylor (USA), Real Life (Originals, Daunt Books Publishing).

Five out of the six in the shortlist are from America, four of them are debutants and four are women.

Doshi was born in New Jersey in the US. She has a BA in Art History from Barnard College in New York and a Masters in History of Art from University College London. She was awarded the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize in 2013 and a Charles Pick Fellowship in 2014. Her writing has appeared in Granta and The Sunday Times. She lives in Dubai with her family.

Burnt Sugar is her first novel. It was published in India under the title Girl in White Cotton.

The shortlist was revealed by the 2020 Chair of Judges Margaret Busby during a virtual press conference. The other judges are Lee Child, Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay and Emily Wilson.

A press release from The Booker Prizes said the shortlist was selected from 162 submitted books.

"Readers of the six chosen books will explore the tender story of a mother's battle to save her daughter in a dystopian city made inhospitable by the climate crisis; witness a woman confronting the realities of life and morality in Zimbabwe as she descends into poverty; travel to India to unpick an unsettling mother-daughter relationship redefined by dementia; uncover the extraordinary tales of the African women who went to war during Italy’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia; find humanity and humour in the harsh realities experienced by a marginalised family in 1980s Glasgow; and question what ‘real life’ is in a fresh take on the campus novel, which offers a nuanced account of racism and homophobia," it said.

The 2020 Booker Prize for Fiction is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland between 1 October 2019 and 30 September 2020.

‘As judges we read 162 books, many of them conveying important, sometimes uncannily similar and prescient messages. The best novels often prepare our societies for valuable conversations, and not just about the inequities and dilemmas of the world − whether in connection with climate change, forgotten communities, old age, racism, or revolution when necessary − but also about how magnificent the interior life of the mind, imagination and spirit is, in spite of circumstance. The shortlist of six came together unexpectedly, voices and characters resonating with us all even when very different. We are delighted to help disseminate these chronicles of creative humanity to a global audience," Busby said.

‘The novels on this year's shortlist range in setting from an unusual child growing up in working-class Glasgow in the 1980s, to a woman coping with a post-colonial nightmare in Zimbabwe. Along the way we meet a man struggling with racism on a university campus, join a trek in the wilderness after an environmental disaster, eavesdrop on a woman coping with her ageing mother as they travel across India and in an exploration of female power discover how ordinary people rose up in 1930s Ethiopia to defend their country against invading Italians. It’s a wondrous and enriching variety of stories, and hugely exciting as well," she said.

Gaby Wood, Literary Director of the Booker Prize Foundation, said, "Every year, judging the Booker Prize is an act of discovery. What’s out there, how can we widen the net, how do these books seem when compared to one another, how do they fare when re-read? These are questions judges always ask themselves, and each other.

"This year there has perhaps been more discovery than usual, both in the sense that debut novels are in the majority, and due to the fact that the judges themselves were surprised to find that was the case. Why were they surprised? They were focussing on the books. No one wins the Booker Prize because of who they are. A book wins because of what it does. What has transpired is a testament to the judges’ faith in – among other things – first fictions: they have found these writers to have much to say, and found them to have said it in a way that became even richer on a second reading."

The 2020 winner will be announced on November 17 in an event broadcast from London’s Roundhouse in collaboration with BBC Arts.

The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. The winner will receive a further £50,000 and can expect instant international recognition.

The 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction was won jointly by The Testaments by Margaret Atwood and Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo.

NNN