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- Anne Tyler and Avni Doshi make 2020 Booker Prize longlist
The longlist for this year’s Booker Prize has been announced, and Penguin authors Anne Tyler and Avni Doshi are among the novelists vying for the world's most prestigious literary award.
Tyler's Redhead By the Side of the Road shot straight to the top of the New York Times bestseller list when it was released in April. A warm-hearted and wise look at family, love and the eccentricities of middle age, it earned praise from around the world as another career highlight from one of America's most consistent and respected authors. Tyler was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2015 for A Spool of Blue Thread.
Burnt Sugar, meanwhile, is the debut novel from Avni Doshi and comes out on Thursday. Already a critical success, it is a family story that offers a "stark new portrayal of motherhood" full of "searing truths".
Other books to make the longlist include two-time winner Hilary Mantel for The Mirror & the Light, the final part of a Cromwell trilogy that has already seen her win the award with instalments one and two, and Such A Fun Age, the wisely praised debut from American author Kiley Reid.
Judging this year's winner is a star-studded panel chaired by editor, critic and former publisher Margaret Busby. Jack Reacher mastermind Lee Child; author and critic Sameer Rahim; writer and broadcaster Lemn Sissay; and classicist and translator Emily Wilson will together decide which author deserves the £50,000 prize.
"Included are novels carried by the sweep of history with memorable characters brought to life and given visibility, novels that represent a moment of cultural change, or the pressures an individual faces in pre- and post-dystopian society," Busby said in a statement.
"Some of the books focus on interpersonal relationships that are complex, nuanced, emotionally charged. There are voices from minorities often unheard, stories that are fresh, bold and absorbing," she continued.
"The best fiction enables the reader to relate to other people's lives; sharing experiences that we could not ourselves have imagined is as powerful as being able to identify with characters."
The shortlist of six books will be announced on 15 September, with the winning author being revealed in November.
Here is the longlist in full:
Diane Cook - The New Wilderness
Tsitsi Dangarembga - This Mournable Body
Avni Doshi - Burnt Sugar
Gabriel Krauze - Who They Was
Hilary Mantel - The Mirror & The Light
Colum McCann - Apeirogon
Maaza Mengiste - The Shadow King
Kiley Reid - Such a Fun Age
Brandon Taylor - Real Life
Anne Tyler - Redhead by The Side of The Road
Douglas Stuart - Shuggie Bain
Sophie Ward - Love and Other Thought Experiments
C Pam Zhang - How Much of These Hills is Gold
Last year, Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other and Margaret Atwood's The Testaments were jointly awarded the prize.