Marlon James and Douglas Stuart Could Each Become Two-Time Booker Winners
Two authors on this year's Booker Prize shortlist could win the award for a second time when the winner is announced in London on Monday, November 9. Marlon James and Douglas Stuart have each won the prize before. ABC News reported that a win by either would make that author the fifth double Booker winner.
Only four writers have won the prize twice so far: J.M. Coetzee, Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood. The Booker is one of the best-known literary awards in the English-speaking world. It is given each year to a novel written in English and published in Britain or Ireland.
James, from Jamaica, won in 2015 for A Brief History of Seven Killings. This year he is on the shortlist (the group of finalists picked from the longer list of entries) with The Disappearers. The novel is set in 1980s Jamaica and follows a group of gay men.
Stuart, from Scotland, won in 2020 for Shuggie Bain. He is shortlisted again with John of John, a story of father-son secrets on a remote Scottish island. Both books are on the list alongside work from other countries, and the six-writer shortlist includes authors from four countries in total.
The other shortlisted titles include M. John Harrison's The End of Everything and Luke Kennard's Black Bag. May We Feed the King is also on the list. The judges are Mary Beard, Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker and Rebecca Liu.
The winner receives £50,000, which ABC News put at $67,000. The prize is awarded at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate, a former fish market in London. The event will be livestreamed, so anyone can watch the announcement as it happens.
Monday's result will decide whether either author joins that short list of double winners. Whoever takes the prize will also receive the money and the attention that comes with it, and the other five finalists will go home without it.
