Read extracts from the Booker Prize 2022 longlist

Read an extract from each work of fiction on the Booker Prize 2022 longlist

‘The list offers story, fable and parable, fantasy, mystery, meditation and thriller,’ said 2022 Chair of the judges Neil MacGregor. From the youngest and oldest authors ever to be nominated to illuminating debuts and even the shortest book to make the list, join us as we explore this year’s most remarkable works of fiction.

Read the 2022 longlist: an extract from The Colony by Audrey Magee

In Audrey Magee’s lyrical and brooding fable, The Colony, two outsiders visit an island off the west coast of Ireland, with unforeseen and haunting consequences

Read the 2022 longlist: an extract from Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet

Graeme Macrae Burnet offers a dazzlingly inventive meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself. Read the opening of Case Study chapter here

Read the 2022 longlist: an extract from Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

Read the opening chapter from Nightcrawling; at once agonising and mesmerising, Leila Mottley presents a haunting vision of marginalised young people navigating the darkest corners of an adult world.

Read the 2022 shortlist: an extract from The Trees by Percival Everett

Read the opening from Percival Everett’s striking novel, which combines an unnerving murder mystery with a powerful condemnation of racism and police violence.

Read the 2022 shortlist: an extract from Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Read the opening chapter from Claire Keegan’s tender tale of hope and quiet heroism. It is both a celebration of compassion and a stern rebuke of the sins committed in the name of religion.

Read the 2022 longlist: an extract from Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

Under attack from within, Lia tries to keep her past, present and her body separate. Read an extract from Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

Read the 2022 winner: an extract from The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

Winner of the Booker Prize 2022, Shehan Karunatilaka’s rip-roaring epic is a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war. Read our extract from the book’s first section

Read the 2022 longlist: an extract from Trust by Hernan Diaz

Read the opening words from Hernan Diaz’s literary puzzle about money, power, and intimacy, which challenges the myths shrouding wealth, and the fictions that often pass for history.

Read the 2022 shortlist: an extract from Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Read the first chapter of the latest fiction from a remarkable and enduring talent, which brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of the world around him.

Read the 2022 shortlist: an extract from Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

Read the opening words from Glory, an energetic and exhilarating joyride from NoViolet Bulawayo. The story of an uprising, told by a vivid chorus of animal voices that help us see our human world more clearly.

Read the 2022 longlist: an extract from Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

Read an extract from Booth, where an ill-fated family of thespians, drinkers and dreamers, whose most infamous son is destined to commit a terrible act.

Read the 2022 shortlist: an extract from Oh William! By Elizabeth Strout

Read the opening words from Oh William! where bestselling author Elizabeth Strout returns to her beloved heroine Lucy Barton in a luminous novel about love, loss, and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any time.

Read the 2022 longlist: an extract from After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

After Sappho is a joyous reimagining of the lives of a brilliant group of feminists, sapphists, artists and writers from the past. Read the opening words here