Summary

  • Shortlisted authors Anuk Arudpragasam, Damon Galgut, Patricia Lockwood, Nadifa Mohamed, Richard Powers and Maggie Shipstead joined Samira Ahmed live in Broadcasting House's Radio Theatre for the announcement of the winner of the 2021 Booker Prize.

  • Last year's winner Douglas Stuart was in conversation with HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. And 30 years on from his historic Booker win, Ben Okri reflected on how the prize changed his life.

  • The live ceremony was broadcast simultaneously on the BBC News channel, BBC Radio 4 and BBC iPlayer.

Live Reporting

  1. Great Circle - the 1-minute film

    BBC Arts

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  2. Booker Backers

    Nigella on Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

    Great Circle is – much as I hate the term - a masterpiece. I don’t believe in reducing a novel to its plot, but this encompasses flight, travel, adventure, identity, sexuality, family, the celebrity age – and in such beautiful writing.

    Nigella Lawson, Food writer and presenter

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  3. Booker Book Groups on Front Row

    #6 Maggie Shipstead

    BBC Arts

    In Front Row's final Booker Prize Book Group on Monday, listeners put their questions to shortlisted author Maggie Shipstead.

    Shipstead's novel Great Circle tells the story of Marian Graves, a pioneering female pilot in the first half of the 20th century, and in a separate strand in the present, Hadley Baxter, an actress playing Marian in a Hollywood movie. Listen below.

    Marian is composited of many female pilots... I took it as a serious responsibility (to make her realistic).

    Maggie Shipstead

    Maggie Shipstead on her novel, Great Circle.

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  4. Booker Backers

    Oprah on Bewilderment by Richard Powers

    Bewilderment contains some of the most beautiful sentences ever written on the planet, because, why, Richard Powers is writing them.

    Oprah Winfrey, Actor, producer, author and talk show host

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  5. Bewilderment - the 1-minute film

    BBC Arts

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  6. Booker Book Groups on Front Row

    #5 Richard Powers

    On Thursday, the fifth of Front Row's Booker Prize Book Groups welcomed author Richard Powers, shortlisted for the second time for his novel Bewilderment.

    He describes it as a story about the anxiety of family life on a damaged planet as well as a kind of ‘planetary romance’. Listen below.

    Richard Powers on his novel, Bewilderment.

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  7. Authors in position at the BBC Radio Theatre

    BBC Arts

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  8. “Every book on the shortlist is truly an achievement”

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  9. The Fortune Men - the 1-minute film

    BBC Arts

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  10. Booker Backers

    Fatima Manji on The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

    BBC Arts

    The Fortune Men brings to light a true story of great injustice, and does so with tremendous empathy and rightly placed fury. I devoured every sentence of this rich tale and it moved me to tears. Through powerful storytelling, Nadifa Mohamed transports us to a moment in time in Wales, which still has astonishing political resonance today.

    Fatima Manji, Channel Four News journalist and author

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  11. Booker Book Groups on Front Row

    #4 Nadifa Mohamed

    BBC Arts

    Last Wednesday, Nadifa Mohamed joined tonight's presenter Samira Ahmed and a group of Front Row listeners for the programme's Booker Prize Book Group, discussing her novel The Fortune Men, about a racist miscarriage of justice in Cardiff's Tiger Bay in the 1950s. Listen below.

    Nadifa Mohamed on her novel, The Fortune Men.

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  12. How does it feel to be shortlisted for the Booker?

    The authors respond...

    BBC Arts

    Patricia Lockwood's response in the video below was more... performative than the other authors.

    🥚

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  13. No One Is Talking About This - the 1-minute film

    BBC Arts

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  14. Backing for Patricia Lockwood

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  15. Booker Backers

    Busy Philips and Caissie St.Onge on No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

    BBC Arts

    No One Is Talking About This is so astute and painful, it's almost frightening. Painful, joyful, and so full of life, we were already sad that it would end too soon after just the first page.

    Busy Philips / Caissie St.Onge, Actor & author / Writer

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  16. Booker Book Groups on Front Row

    #3 Patricia Lockwood

    BBC Arts

    Last Tuesday, Patricia Lockwood became the latest shortlisted author to join Front Row's Booker Prize Book Groups.

    Listeners asked her about her “ferociously original” novel No One Is Talking About This, which explores a relationship with the online world and how that changes when an incredibly moving event happens in real life. Listen below.

    Her niece is dying, part of her just picks up her phone and scrolls though Jason Mamoa pics... and she steps back and says “what are you doing, what if this happens while you're looking at Jason Mamoa pics?!” That did reflect my experience, I was a person who was terminally online before, and I was never able to participate in the same way again.

    Patricia Lockwood

    Listen to a listener Q&A with Patricia Lockwood about her shortlisted novel No One is Talking About This.

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  17. Book blogger dsweet_library's hot take on the shortlist

    BBC Arts

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  18. The Promise - the 1-minute film

    BBC Arts

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  19. Booker Backers

    Joan Bakewell on The Promise by Damon Galgut

    BBC Arts

    The Promise is a novel that sings in the mind: it tells of family lives lived within the embrace of South Africa’s history. The weight of its ideas sits lightly on the page: in prose that matches immediacy and insight.

    Joan Bakewell, Broadcaster, journalist and novelist

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  20. Booker Book Groups on Front Row

    #2 Damon Galgut

    BBC Arts

    Next it's time to take a look at The Promise by Damon Galgut. The author was the guest on Radio 4's Front Row last Monday as the programme's Booker Book Groups continued.

    A panel of listeners talked to Damon about his shortlisted novel, the story of a white South African family and a promise made to Salome, the black woman who works for them. Listen below.

    There's only a small window that opens onto these four funerals... you don't really get the full trajectory in between, so as a reader you have to fill in those gaps for yourself. I'm fascinated as a writer by the edge of the map, by the things that are not said.

    Damon Galgut

    On his novel, The Promise.

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