Lankan novelist Arudpragasam shortlisted for 2021 Booker Prize

Lankan novelist Anuk Arudpragasam’s “A Passage North” has been shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize.

The final shortlist of six novels has been revealed for this year’s Booker Prize.

The final six include debut novelist Patricia Lockwood with “No One Is Talking About This”. Damon Galgut makes the list for the third time with “The Promise”, and Richard Powers makes his second shortlist appearance with “Bewilderment”. Also making the list are Anuk Arudpragasam for “A Passage North”, Nadifa Mohamed with “The Fortune Men” and Maggie Shipstead with “Great Circle”.

The prestigious British-based £50,000 award is open to any authors writing in English.

The winning book will be revealed during the prize ceremony at the BBC Radio Theatre on November 3rd.

Anuk Arudpragasam is an award-winning Sri Lankan Tamil novelist, shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize for his second novel, A Passage North. In his second novel, the Sri Lankan author explores the lasting effects of the trauma and violence of his country’s civil war, and a past love affair.

His first, The Story of a Brief Marriage, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Arudpragasam studied philosophy in the United States, receiving a doctorate at Columbia University. He credits Descartes’ Meditations, which he discovered as a teenager in a bookshop near his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for setting him off on that path. He is currently working on a new novel about mothers and daughters in the Tamil diaspora.