The 2015 Folio Prize Shortlist

In December we reported on the 80-book Folio Prize longlist, and today they have announced the eight-book shortlist:

10:04 by Ben Lerner (Granta)
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (Faber)
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (Granta)
Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Granta)
Family Life by Akhil Sharma (Faber)
How to Be Both by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín (Viking)
Outline by Rachel Cusk (Faber)

Only books published in the UK are eligible for the award, but the nominated authors come from around the world. The winner will be announced in March.

The Chair of Judges William Fiennes released this statement with the shortlist:

This shortlist is the result of months of reading and hours of passionate conversation. The eight books we’ve chosen explore vast themes — time, loss, belonging, war, solitude, marriage and family, the making and the mystery of art — with amazing vitality and grace.

They manage to be both epic and intimate — in fact, they show those dimensions to be two sides of the same coin. They’ve surprised, moved, challenged and enchanted us. They’ve made us laugh. They’ve grown and deepened when we read them again.

But it’s not just the richness and fire of the individual books. We’re excited by the range of ideas, voices and approaches represented here, and by the way our shortlist shows the novel refreshing itself, reaching out for new shapes and strategies, still discovering what it might be, what it might do.