Booker Prize shortlist: Novels (mostly) about middle age that are anything but safe and comfortable

The Times has described the 2025 Booker Prize shortlist as “revenge of the middle-aged author”. If the phrase sounds derogatory, it isn’t meant that way: the review also describes the shortlist as “novels for grown-ups”, with the prize privileging “maturity over novelty” and supporting “unpretentious, old-fashioned literary fiction”.

This is reinforced by the Booker Prize website, which highlights the previous winner (Kiran Desai) and two previously shortlisted authors (Andrew Miller and David Szalay) on the list, while noting that all six authors have long-established literary careers.

A book prize should reward novelty, though – and the Booker is, after all, a book prize, not an author prize like the Nobel. But if novelty isn’t obvious from the authors themselves, it can be detected in their books.

Their ages should not be a big surprise. Several literary prizes focus on older writers, including the newly launched Pioneer Prize for female writers over 60, established by Bernardine Evaristo to “acknowledge and celebrate pioneering British women writers” in all genres. Evaristo notes that the prize intends to correct the problem that “older women writers tend to be overlooked” – 91-year-old Maureen Duffy was its first recipient.

Perhaps these prizes and Booker nominations respond in part to society’s emphasis on youth, reflected in publishing initiatives such as Granta’s best young novelists, Penguin’s authors under...

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