Irish author Colin Barrett has made the 2024 Booker Prize longlist for his debut novel “Wild Houses.”
"With two collections behind him, Barrett is well established as a master both of the short story and the sentence; his debut novel confirms and extends all his promise," the Booker Prize panel of five judges said.
"'Wild Houses' is a propulsive, darkly comic and superlatively written account of frustration and misadventure in a small Irish town.
"Nicky is a self-reliant 17-year-old whose dreams of escape are slowly coming into focus when her hapless boyfriend Doll gets taken hostage by local goons over a drug debt; misfit Dev is reluctantly embroiled.
"The connections between the cast and the past tragedies that have forged them are expertly revealed in a slow-burn study of character and fate that’s also an edge-of-your-seat thriller.
"Violence and farce mingle in a novel that feels as sharp, funny and bitingly bittersweet as life."
Wild Houses tells the story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence.
Congratulations to Colin Barrett on being longlisted for the #BookerPrize2024.https://t.co/Rlj0422XMd pic.twitter.com/3STIX59GR7
— The Booker Prizes (@TheBookerPrizes) July 30, 2024
While "Wild Houses" is Barrett's debut novel, the Mayo writer is no stranger to writing. His stories have been published in the Stinging Fly, Granta, Harper’s, and the New Yorker.
Barrett's first book, the short story collection "Young Skins," won the Guardian First Book Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. One of the stories in the book, "Calm with Horses," was adapted into an award-winning 2019 film of the same name, starring Barry Keoghan and Cosmo Jarvis.
Barrett’s second short story collection, "Homesickness," made the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year and was a Book of the Year in Oprah Daily and the Irish Times.
The Booker Prize, considered the world’s most influential prize for a single work of fiction, is open to works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK and / or Ireland.
156 books published between October 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024, were considered for this year's Booker Prize longlist. (Barrett's "Wild Houses" was published in January on Penguin's Jonathan Cape imprint.)
The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 16 in London - the shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.
The winner of the Booker Prize 2024 will be announced in London on November 12. The winning author will receive £50,000 and can expect international recognition and a significant uplift in global sales.
The winner of last year's Booker Prize was "Prophet Song" by Paul Lynch, making Lynch the sixth Irish author to win the prize.
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Colin Barrett joins 12 other authors on the 2024 Booker Prize longlist, aptly nicknamed the 'Bookers Dozen':
- "Wild Houses" by Colin Barrett
- "Headshot" by Rita Bullwinkel
- "James" by Percival Everett
- "Orbital" by Samantha Harvey
- "Creation Lake" by Rachel Kushner
- "My Friends" by Hisham Matar
- "This Strange Eventful History" by Claire Messud
- "Held" by Anne Michaels
- "Wandering Stars" by Tommy Orange
- "Enlightenment" by Sarah Perry
- "Playground" by Richard Powers
- "The Safekeep" by Yael van der Wouden
- "Stone Yard Devotional" by Charlotte Wood
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