The 2021 Booker Prize for Fiction was announced on 3 November 2021, during a ceremony at the BBC Radio Theatre. The longlist was announced on 27 July 2021. The shortlist was announced on 14 September 2021. The Prize – which was chosen from 158 novels published in the UK or Ireland between 1 October 2020 and 30 September 2021 – was awarded to Damon Galgut for his novel, The Promise, receiving £50,000. Shortlisted twice before (in 2003 and 2010), Galgut is the third South African to win the prize, after J. M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer.
Judging panel Rowan Williams Horatia Harrod Natascha McElhone Chigozie Obioma Maya Jasanoff (chair)
Nominees
Shortlist Author Title Genre(s) Country Publisher Damon Galgut The Promise Novel South Africa Jonathan Cape Anuk Arudpragasam A Passage North Novel Sri Lanka Granta Books Patricia Lockwood No One Is Talking About This Novel United States Bloomsbury Publishing/Bloomsbury Circus Nadifa Mohamed The Fortune Men Novel Somalia / United Kingdom Viking / Penguin General / PRH Richard Powers Bewilderment Novel United States Hutchinson Heinemann Maggie Shipstead Great Circle Novel United States Doubleday/Transworld Publishers
Longlist Author Title Genre(s) Country Publisher Anuk Arudpragasam A Passage North Novel Sri Lanka Granta Books Rachel Cusk Second Place Novel UK/Canada Faber & Faber Damon Galgut The Promise Novel South Africa Jonathan Cape Nathan Harris The Sweetness of Water Novel United States Tinder Press Kazuo Ishiguro Klara and the Sun Novel United Kingdom Faber & Faber Karen Jennings An Island Novel South Africa Holland House Books Mary Lawson A Town Called Solace Novel Canada Chatto & Windus / Vintage / PRH Patricia Lockwood No One Is Talking About This Novel United States Bloomsbury Publishing/Bloomsbury Circus Nadifa Mohamed The Fortune Men Novel Somalia / United Kingdom Viking / Penguin General / PRH Richard Powers Bewilderment Novel United States Hutchinson Heinemann Sunjeev Sahota China Room Novel United Kingdom Harvill Secker / Vintage / PRH Maggie Shipstead Great Circle Novel United States Doubleday/Transworld Publishers Francis Spufford Light Perpetual Novel United Kingdom Faber & Faber
See also List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction
References