Trinidadian-Irish Writer Included in Booker Prize Longlist

The longlist for the Booker Prize has been announced with no Irish-born authors included this year. However, Claire Adam, a Trinidadian-Irish writer, whose mother is from Cork, is among those selected for her novel 'Love Forms'. Chosen from 153 submissions, the list of 13 authors - described as a 'baker's dozen' - celebrates the best works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, according to the Booker Prize committee.

The nominated books are:

• Love Forms by Claire Adam (Faber)
• The South by Tash Aw (4th Estate)
• Universality by Natasha Brown (Faber)
• One Boat by Jonathan Buckley (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
• Flashlight by Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape)
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (Hamish Hamilton)
• Audition by Katie Kitamura (Fern Press)
• The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits (Faber)
• The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)
• Endling by Maria Reva (Virago/Little, Brown)
• Flesh by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape)
• Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Viking)
• Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga (Daunt Books Originals)

The 2025 judging panel is chaired by Ireland's 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle and includes award-winning actor, producer and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker, Booker Prize-longlisted novelist Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, writer, broadcaster and literary critic Chris Power, and New York Times bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author Kiley Reid.

The committee described its job as looking for the best work of fiction, selected from entries published in Ireland or Britain between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025. The list, which features seven women and six men, includes five authors who identify as British or joint British - including one who identifies as Hungarian-British - and four who identify as American or joint American - including one who identifies as Albanian-American.

Mr Doyle said: 'There are short novels and some very long ones. There are novels that experiment with form and others that do so less obviously. Some of them examine the past and others poke at our shaky present. They are all alive with great characters and narrative surprises. All, somehow, examine identity, individual or national, and all, I think, are gripping and excellent.'

The prize was won last year by British author Samantha Harvey for the book Orbital, about astronauts looking down on Earth.

According to the source: RTE.ie.