Booker shortlist 2025: six novels (mostly) about middle age that are anything but safe and comfortable

By Jenni Ramone, Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Global Literatures, Nottingham Trent University

The Times has described the 2025 Booker Prize shortlist as “revenge of the middle-aged author”“. If the phrase sounds derogatory, it isn’t meant that way: the review also describes the shortlist as "novels for grown-ups”, with the prize privileging “maturity over novelty” and supporting “unpretentious, old-fashioned literary fiction”.

This is reinforced by the Booker Prize website, which highlights the previous winner (Kiran Desai) and two previously shortlisted…

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