Deciding on 2025 Booker Prize shortlist was ‘real agony’ – Sarah Jessica Parker

Sex And The City actress Sarah Jessica Parker has said finalising a shortlist for the 2025 Booker Prize was “real agony” and that there was “nothing casual” about letting a book go.

The Hollywood star, 60, who launched her own imprint, SJP Lit, with the indie publisher Zando, was among five judges who made up this year’s panel for the acclaimed literary prize.

The shortlist, which was selected from a longlist of 13 titles and comprised of British, Indian and American authors, was revealed on Tuesday.

The majority of authors who featured in the list have written at least five books, with this year’s shortlist seeing the return of some familiar faces including previous Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai with The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.

Desai spent almost two decades writing her 700-page book, the longest book on this year’s list, which follows the love story of two young people as they find their way back to each other.

Past shortlistees also made the cut, including British-Hungarian writer David Szalay, who made the shortlist in 2016 with All That Man Is and returns with Flesh, a novel about a man and his class ascent as he makes his way from his isolated life in Hungary to London’s elite.

Andrew Miller made the shortlist in 2001 for Oxygen and was selected by the 2025 panel for The Land in Winter, a novel which centres on the tensions within two marriages on a backdrop of the dramatic 1962 winter in the West Country.

Meanwhile, three authors made their Booker Prize shortlist debut, including Susan Choi’s Flashlight, which follows 10-year old Louisa and her family in the aftermath of her father’s disappearance.

Katie Kitamura’s Audition also made the shortlist for her book about how an actress’s life is turned upside down after she meets a young, troubling man for lunch.

The Rest Of Our Lives by Ben Markovits completes the list with his novel about getting older and the challenges of long-term marriage.

Speaking about the shortlisting process, Parker said: “I think we all came to that meeting with a certain amount of worry about how we would take care of these authors and that we knew we could only have six.

“It’s real agony. There’s nothing casual about letting a book go.

“I think there was a sadness after this meeting, like genuine sadness about losing the opportunity to talk publicly about books that we thought were not just worthwhile but important.

“It was loss.”

The six books were selected by the judging panel, which includes Parker along with writer and 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle, who is the first winner to chair a Booker judging panel.

Booker Prize-longlisted novelist Ayobami Adebayo was also a judge along with writer and literary critic Chris Power and New York Times bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author Kiley Reid.

Speaking about the panel, Parker said: “I think the other thing that I feel everybody brought was just the love for books, like really, truly.

“I think we all brought just the excitement and this kind of hope and the promise.

“Just the privilege, I can’t even describe adequately what it feels like to have an author’s book in your hand, sometimes a very, very highly regarded, established author whose book is not out yet and you know that you would be the envy of everybody if they knew that you were holding this book, and you got to read it, early, and you got to talk about it with people who are so learned and themselves such extraordinary writers.”

This year’s selection has been described by Doyle as “brilliantly human” with a focus on the ties that bind families together and how characters navigate familiar domestic situations.

The shortlisted books transport readers around the world, from Hungary to Japan, Italy, the US, India and England, with storylines that span anything from a few days to decades.

Doyle echoed similar sentiments to Parker, describing a sense of guilt when selecting the shortlisted books.

He added: “The six have, I think, two big things in common. Their authors are in total command of their own store of English, their own rhythm, their own expertise; they have each crafted a novel that no-one else could have written.

“All of the books, in six different and very fresh ways, find their stories in the examination of the individual trying to live with – to love, to seek attention from, to cope with, to understand, to keep at bay, to tolerate, to escape from – other people. In other words, they are all brilliantly written and they are all brilliantly human.”

The Booker Prize 2025 ceremony will take place on Monday November 10 in London and will be broadcast in a special edition of BBC Radio 4’s arts programme, Front Row, at 9.30pm as well as livestreamed on the Booker Prize social channels.

The winner will receive £50,000 and a trophy named Iris, after the 1978 winner Iris Murdoch.

Last year, British author Samantha Harvey claimed the winning title and became the first woman since 2019 to win the Booker Prize.

Booker Prize 2025 shortlist

1. Flashlight by Susan Choi
2. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
3. Audition by Katie Kitamura
4. The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
5. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
6. Flesh by David Szalay