Kevin Barry longlisted for 2019 Booker Prize with third novel

LIMERICK-born author Kevin Barry has been longlisted for a Booker Prize with his latest novel Night Boat to Tangier. 

The book, which earned Kevin a place in the Booker Dozen, is his third novel and is described as being “drenched in sex, death and narcotics”.

The novel centres on two ageing gangsters from Cork in southern Spain, and was noted as “a rogue gem of a novel...a work of crime fiction not quite like any other” by judges. 

The list of fellow nominees includes eight women and four other men, with a six-strong shortlist to be announced in early September. 

The overall winner will be revealed on October 14 and will be awarded a £50k (€58k) prize. 

Kevin’s first novel City of Bohane won the International Impac Dublin Literary Award in 2013, with his follow-up novel Beatlebone, published in 2015, awarded the Goldsmith Prize. 

The 2018 Booker Prize was won by Belfast author Anna Burns for her novel Milkman, which is about a young woman victimised by paramilitary during the Troubles in Belfast and has sold over half a million copies worldwide. 

This year, Kevin is up against well-known authors such as Salman Rushdie, nominated for Quichotte, and Margaret Atwood with The Testaments. 

Rushdie first won the Booker Prize with Midnight’s Children, and this year is the first year since 2008 that a British author has been longlisted again. 

Interestingly, both of these works have yet to be published, and to be eligible, books must be published in Britain or Ireland between October 1, 2018 and September 30, 2019. 

Other well-known nominees include Jeanette Winterson for Frankissstein and John Lanchester for The Wall. 

Max Porter has also been nominated for Lanny, a follow-up to his debut novel Grief is a Thing with Feathers, which was adapted into a successful stage play. 

Previous nominee Deborah Leavy also features on this year’s longlist with her novel The Man Who Saw Everything, which comes out next month. 

Deborah was previously shortlisted for her novels Hot Milk (2016) and Swimming Home (2011).