We’re offering you the chance to win one of five bundles made up of all six shortlisted titles in contention for this year’s Booker Prize 

This competition is now closed

Publication date and time: Published

To celebrate the announcement of the Booker Prize 2023 shortlist, we are giving you the chance to win a set of all six titles that are in contention for this year’s prize. 

The judges are looking for the best work of long-form fiction, selected from entries published in the UK and Ireland between October 1 2022 and September 30 2023. The shortlist of six books was announced on September 21, 2023, at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced at an event at Old Billingsgate, London, on November 26, 2023.

Chair of Judges Esi Edugyan said this year’s shortlist was ”vibrant, nervy, electric’, adding that the novels invoke ‘a sense of timelessness even while saying something about how we live now.’

We have five sets of the shortlisted books up for grabs. To be in with a chance of winning one set, simply enter your details below by 12:00 BST (UK time) on Friday, October 6, 2023. This competition is open to readers anywhere in the world.

Read more about this year’s Booker Prize here.

Booker Prize 2023 shortlisted books

Enter the competition

Terms and conditions

This competition is a free draw, with only one entry allowed per person, and we reserve the right to disqualify any entries where we suspect one person has used a number of different email addresses. Use or attempted use of any automated or other non-manual entry methods is prohibited.  

The draw is governed by our general rules for competitions, available here, but the following specifics also apply (and take precedence should there be any contradiction or ambiguity).

  • There will be 5 winners, selected at random from entries received before 12:00 BST (UK time) on Friday, October 6, 2023. Entries received after this time will not be eligible.  
  • Each winner will receive the six titles (in their UK editions) on the Booker Prize 2023 longlist.
  • Entrants must be 18 or over, and we reserve the right to ask for proof of age at any point in the competition.
  • The competition is open to those resident in or outside the UK subject to the proviso that an entry is not eligible if it is from a resident in a country or jurisdiction where this free draw may breach any local law or regulation.    
  • Winners will be notified by email no later than midday BST (UK time) on Wednesday, October  11, 2023, and must promptly provide a fully operative postal address for delivery of their prize. If we have not received this within 7 days of us notifying a winner, we will have no obligation to deliver the prize and at our sole discretion, we may select a further winner to receive the prize concerned or simply decide not to give it.  
  • We may in due course and at our sole discretion publicise the names of the winners and their location (in general terms, not specific addresses) on our website and/or social media channels and by entering the competition an entrant agrees to this publicity should they be a prize-winner.  
  • We can only undertake to do what is reasonable in all the circumstances to deliver the prize to a location outside the UK.
  • Bearing in mind, among other things, the value of the prize itself in relation to cost of delivery, we reserve the right (and this is determined at our sole discretion) to ask a winner to provide an alternative address for delivery to a person/location where the cost is proportionate.  
  • Winners are responsible for any taxes or duties they may have to pay in order to take receipt of their prize.
  • While we will aim to despatch prizes as soon as possible after the competition has closed, no responsibility can be accepted for entries delayed or lost.
  • We are not responsible for any damage to the prize in the course of delivery; while we will consider a request for a replacement (if available) if the prize arrives in a seriously damaged state, this is solely in our discretion depending on the particular circumstances.
  • These terms and conditions are governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of England & Wales, and the courts of England & Wales shall have exclusive jurisdiction in relation determining any question or issue in relation to them.

 

What our judges said about the shortlist

Study for ObedienceSarah Bernstein  

‘A stirring meditation on survival and a pointed critique of the demonisation of the outsider.’  

If I Survive YouJonathan Escoffery  

‘All of life is here in unflinching detail: the fragility of existence, the American dream and the road not taken’.  

This Other EdenPaul Harding   

‘It’s rare to encounter a work of historical fiction that is at once so lyrical and so empathetic’.   

Prophet SongPaul Lynch   

‘Propulsive, unsparing and terribly moving, the book warns of the precarity of democratic ideals’.  

Western LaneChetna Maroo  

‘A mesmerising novel about how silence can reverberate within a family in the aftermath of grief’.  

The Bee StingPaul Murray  

‘Funny, sad and truthful. The characters, with their myriad flaws and problems, are unforgettable’. 

Booker Prize judges 2023