The six novels on the Booker Prize 2024 shortlist revealed September 16 include two books of genre interest, titles shown in boldface.

• Percival Everett, James 
• Samantha Harvey, Orbital       
• Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake
• Anne Michaels, Held
• Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep
• Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional

James reimagines The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

1861, the Mississippi River. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, toward the elusive promise of free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise.

With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live, and together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all…

Percival Everett interview: ‘I hope that I have written the novel that Twain did not’: The author of James on how he sees himself as being in conversation with the creator of Huckleberry Finn, and the skills he learnt from reading Tristram Shandy

Orbital focuses on six astronauts in the International Space Station.

They are there to do vital work, but slowly they begin to wonder: what is life without Earth? What is Earth without humanity?

Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents, and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.

The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part – or protective – of it.

Samantha Harvey interview: ‘I wanted to write a space pastoral’. The author of Orbital on how her novel was 25 years in the making, and the work of translated fiction that haunts her.

The Booker Prize is open to works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.

The judging panel is chaired by artist and author Edmund de Waal, joined by award-winning novelist Sara Collins; Fiction Editor of the Guardian, Justine Jordan; world-renowned writer and professor Yiyun Li; and musician, composer and producer Nitin Sawhney.

The judges’ selection was made from 156 books published between October 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024.

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 at Old Billingsgate in London on November 12. The winning author will receive £50,000. 

[Based on a press release.]