Composite of headshots of all 13 authors longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025

Get to know the authors longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025

We asked the authors nominated for this year’s Booker Prize about the inspirations behind their longlisted works, their favourite books, and where and when they most like to write

Published August 14, 2025

Love Forms book on a table next to a glass of water and an image of the author Claire Adam

Claire Adam interview: ‘I wanted to explore the deeply mysterious bond between mothers and their children’

The author of Love Forms, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, talks about writing at the kitchen table, and the text that spoke to her in the language of the Caribbean

Tash Aw interview: ‘I’ve wanted to write this novel for years – some books have a long gestation period’

The author of The South, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, reflects on the inspirations behind the novel, the books that shaped him, and his need for peace, quiet and coffee in order to write

Universality book lying on a desk next to a cup and plate with an image of Natasha Brown next to it

Natasha Brown interview: ‘I think poetry makes for lively book club discussions’

The author of Universality, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, talks about the essay that made her want to become a writer and how she can make a makeshift writing desk pretty much anywhere

One Boat is on a wood desk with a water jug and glass alongside a photo of Jonathan Buckley

Jonathan Buckley interview: ‘At no point did I ever envisage becoming a novelist’

The author of One Boat, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, talks about how writing became a daily necessity and about the books he reads again and again

Susan Choi interview: ‘Reading a great book feels like being dropped onto an alien planet’

The author of Flashlight, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, on being haunted by childhood memories of a trip to Japan, and the richness of short novels

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny lying on a grey chair with a blanket across the back next to an image of Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai interview: ‘I wanted to write a present-day romance with an old-fashioned beauty’

The author of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, talks about her love of The Wind in the Willows and how Latin American writers have influenced her

The book Audition is lying on a desk next to a glass of water and an image of Katie Kitamura

Katie Kitamura interview: ‘As a culture, we’re becoming quite bad at holding a contradiction in our heads’

The author of Audition, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, talks about her love of Steinbeck and Dreiser, and how almost every book changes the way she thinks about the world

Ben Markovits interview: ‘I wanted to write about a certain period of family life coming to an end’

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

Andrew Miller interview: ‘I’ll write anywhere, with anything, on anything’

The author of The Land in Winter, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, explains what inspired his novel, and names the books and writers that have influenced him over the years

Endling book cover resting on a box with a photo of Maria Reva

Maria Reva interview: ‘If I love a book, I want everyone to love it as much as I do’

The author of Endling, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, talks about 45-minute writing stints and the off-hand remark that partly inspired her novel

David Szalay interview: ‘I wanted to write about what it’s like to be a living body in the world’

The author of Flesh, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, reflects on the most inspiring books from his youth, his love of Samuel Pepys’s diaries, and why 6am is his best time to write

Benjamin Wood interview: ‘I used to be fussy about the conditions I needed for writing, but then I had children’

The author of Seascraper, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, discusses feeling compelled to write about the region where he grew up, and reveals that he wrote the novel on a churchyard bench

The book cover of Misinterpretation on a bench with a photo of the author Ledia Xhoga next to it

Ledia Xhoga interview: ‘Sometimes, while writing, I’ll turn on a black and white movie and let it play on mute’

The author of Misinterpretation, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, talks about the book that made her walk into a lamppost, and the one with the most beautiful last sentence ever written