The author of The Rest of Our Lives, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, on writing about middle age, an anthology that inspired him, and the book club that gave him a taste for Philip Roth
Ben Markovits
Novelist Ben Markovits grew up in Texas, London and Berlin
He studied at Yale University and the University of Oxford. After graduating, he became a professional basketball player in Landshut, Germany.
His 12 novels include Either Side of Winter, You Don’t Have to Live Like This, The Sidekick and The Rest of Our Lives. The latter was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025.
He has published essays, stories, poetry and reviews in the Guardian, Granta, the Paris Review and the New York Times, among others. In 2013 Granta selected him as one of their Best of Young British Novelists and in 2015 he won the Eccles British Library Writer in Residence Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He lives in London and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.
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It’s matter of fact, effortlessly warm, and it uses the smallest parts of human behaviour to uphold bigger themes, like mortality, sickness, and love
The Booker Prize 2025 judges on The Rest of Our Lives
All nominated books
An unforgettable road trip of a novel about a middle-aged academic whose marriage, career and body are failing him
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