The Booker Prizes Awardees & Honorees

Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin is actually three narratives in one. In the novel's frame narrative, we meet Iris Chase Griffen, one of the few surviving members of the once-wealthy Chase family of Port Ticonderoga, Canada. As the book opens, she is preparing to present a creative writing award endowed in memory of her deceased sister, Laura—the ostensible author of the novel-within-a-novel (also named The Blind Assassin). Now close to death herself, Iris decides to... Read The Blind Assassin Summary

The Bone Clocks (2014) is a work of literary fantasy and the sixth novel by English author David Mitchell. It was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, and also received the 2015 World Fantasy Award.Spanning nearly 60 years and featuring five different narrators, The Bone Clocks follows Holly Sykes, a young woman from Kent, England, who becomes embroiled in a secret war between two groups of immortal beings called the Horologists and the Anchorites... Read The Bone Clocks Summary

The Bone People (1984) by Keri Hulme was the first New Zealand novel to receive the Booker Prize. It also earned a number of other awards, including the 1984 New Zealand Book Award and the Pegasus Award for Maori Literature. A native of Christchurch, Hulme grew up on the South Island. She comes from a large, diverse, multicultural family of English, Scottish, and Maori descent. After finishing high school, the writer began working as a... Read The Bone People Summary

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The Enchantress of Florence is a 2008 magical-realist novel by Salman Rushdie. The story incorporates many fantastical, folkloric elements as it portrays life in the Mughal Empire and Renaissance Florence in the 16th century. In the novel, a mysterious European man arrives in the Mughal court with a story which can only be told to the emperor. Rushdie described the novel as his most heavily researched work and The Enchantress of Florence was praised by... Read The Enchantress Of Florence Summary

The English Patient (1992) is a historical romance novel by Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje. The novel explores the relationships between four dissimilar people living in an abandoned Italian monastery at the end of World War II. The eponymous English patient—actually a Hungarian count burned beyond recognition—tells Canadian nurse Hana the story of his forbidden romance with British amateur cartographer Katharine Clifton as their small team attempted, several years earlier, to map North African deserts. Using... Read The English Patient Summary

Written in a style that evokes the oral tradition of storytelling, The Famished Road, by Nigerian writer Ben Okri, follows the peripatetic adventures of Azaro, a young boy who is finding his way amid the poverty and political passions of a newly independent nation. Winner of the prestigious Booker Prize in 1991, the novel presents an allegorical tale of both the pitfalls and the promise latent in the post-colonial moment. Nigeria was one of the... Read The Famished Road Summary

`The Garden of Evening Mists (2012) is a historical novel by Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng. A former intellectual property lawyer, Eng received international acclaim for his first novel, The Gift of Rain (2007), which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The Garden of Evening Mists, his second novel, was shortlisted for the same prize. The narrative follows Teoh Yun Ling, a Malaysian woman who, while confronting a degenerative neurological condition that is erasing... Read The Garden of Evening Mists Summary

The Gift of Rain (2007) is a historical novel by Tan Twan Eng. Set in Penang, Malaysia, during World War II, the novel follows Philip Hutton, a Chinese British young man. As he navigates his dual heritage, Philip forms a complex relationship with a Japanese diplomat who becomes both his mentor and betrayer, forcing him to confront questions of loyalty, identity, and survival during the Japanese occupation. The Gift of Rain was Tan Twan Eng’s... Read The Gift of Rain Summary

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The Inheritance of Loss, a 2006 book by Kiran Desai, explores immigration, identity, and relationships on both the interpersonal and international scale. Spanning India, England, and the United States, the novel details the conflict between traditional Indian ways of life and the shiny opulence of Western nations. The book won several awards, including the Man Booker Prize in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007. Desai wrote the book in the... Read The Inheritance of Loss Summary

The Luminaries (2013) by Eleanor Catton is historical fiction written in the style of a 19th-century serial novel. It is set during the gold rush on the South Island of New Zealand in the 1860s. A whodunit told using two overlapping timelines and extensive flashbacks, it deploys motifs of astrology to paint a detailed portrait of class, gender, and conflict on the colonial frontier. The novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2013; at the... Read The Luminaries Summary

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Richard Flanagan’s 2014 novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North won the Man Booker Prize for fiction. It is an examination of the consequences of war, regret, loneliness, adultery, and love. The book unfolds through brief chapters that span five parts and multiple decades. The experiences of the men in the WWII Japanese POW camp mirror those of Richard Flanagan’s father, who was himself a prisoner of war. Although the novel has many characters—even... Read The Narrow Road to the Deep North Summary

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The Remains of the Day is a novel by British writer Kazuo Ishiguro. Released in 1989, the novel tells the story of Stevens, who once worked as a butler at a stately home in England. In his old age, he returns to the house and reminisces about his experiences in the 1920-1930s. Most of the novel is told in flashback. The novel was adapted into a critically-acclaimed film of the same name, released in 1993... Read The Remains of the Day Summary

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The Satanic Verses is a 1988 magical realism novel by Salman Rushdie. The novel weaves together different narratives spread across hundreds of years, framed by the story of two competing Indian Muslim actors. The publication of The Satanic Verses caused controversy, particularly due to the novel's supposedly blasphemous depiction of the prophet Muhammad. The book was burned, riots resulted in death, and a religious edict was issued against Rushdie in 1989 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah... Read The Satanic Verses Summary