The Man Booker Prize longlist has included a graphic novel for the first time in the award's history. Sabrina, by US author Nick Drnaso, impressed the jury for a prize which once dismissed the genre as "comic books". His work, about a vanished young woman and the 24-hour aftermath, uses purposely simplistic illustrations to present a story of violence and "fake news" conspiracy theories. It was described as "oblique, subtle [and] minimal", with judges saying the "changing shape of fiction" meant it was about time that a graphic novel made it onto the longlist. Judge and best-selling crime novelist Val McDermid said: "We all read it and were blown away by it. The graphic novel has increasingly become front and centre in terms of storytelling [and] we felt Sabrina does just what good fiction should do." The 13 titles on the longlist consists of six writers from the UK, three from the US, two Irish and two Canadian writers. It marks the first time that novels published in Ireland are eligible for the £50,000 prize. Also named on the longlist is Belinda Bauer's crime thriller Snap, which opens to scenes of a mother abandoning her three children and their struggle to deal with her disappearance. Judges called it an "acute, stylist, intelligent novel about how we survive trauma" which "undermines the tropes of its own genre and leaves us with something that lingers". Poet Robin Robertson used a mix of verse and prose in his first novel The Long Take, while the youngest authors on this year's list, debut author Daisy Johnson with Everything Under and Sally Rooney with Normal People, were praised for "looking at the world from the perspective of their age... and their books have a very different flavour". 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Pulitzer Prize-winning Richard Powers was selected for his novel The Overstory. Michael Ondaatje, the only former winner on this year's longlist, impressed the judges with his book Warlight, which begins in London in 1945 with the city struggling to recover from the Blitz. See the full list and what the judges said about each work below: The Man Booker Prize 2018 longlist: Belinda Bauer (UK) - Snap (Bantam Press) Booker judges: “An acute, stylish, intelligent novel about how we survive trauma. Expertly paced, Snap offers a beautiful evocation of the lives of children, and how they perceive and manage tragedy.” Anna Burns (UK) - Milkman (Faber & Faber) “At the intersection of class, race, gender and sexual violence, it deals with oppression and power with a Beckettian sense of humour, offering a wholly original take on Ireland in the time of the Troubles through the mind of a young girl.” Nick Drnaso (USA) - Sabrina (Granta Books) "Oblique, subtle, minimal, unmanipulative: the style of the pictures is the book’s worldview. Drnaso uses images to express an idea about what’s invisible – an idea about uncertainty, and the different kinds of holes that missing people leave in our lives." Esi Edugyan (Canada) - Washington Black (Serpent’s Tail) “A dazzling exploration of race in the Atlantic world, which also manages to be a yarn and a chase story. It manages to keep you on the edge of your seat, while making you, as a reader, want to savour every moment.” Guy Gunaratne (UK) - In Our Mad And Furious City (Tinder Press) “An ambitious mosaic of virtuosic ventriloquism, Guy Gunaratne’s book is an inner city novel for our times, exploring the endurance of social trauma across generations, and conveying the agony and energy of the marginalised, the outsider, and the oppressed.” Daisy Johnson (UK) - Everything Under (Jonathan Cape) “A hypnotic, mythic, unexpected story from a beguiling new voice.<doc-sep>A graphic novel has been included on the Man Booker Prize longlist for the first time, as the literary award looks beyond the old guard to feature "fresh" new voices. Sabrina, by the US writer and illustrator Nick Drnaso, features a woman whose shocking death is captured on video and goes viral on social media, becoming fodder for conspiracy theorists in a world of 'fake news'. Drnaso, 29, is one of four authors aged under 30 on a list filled with newcomers. There is no place for past Booker winners who were eligible this year, including Julian Barnes, Alan Hollinghurst and Peter Carey. The only long-established name is Michael Ondaatje, who shared the prize in 1992 for The English Patient and returns this year with Warlight. The judges praised Drnaso's work as "oblique, subtle, minimal, unmanipulative" and said: "Given the changing shape of fiction it was only a matter of time before a graphic novel was included on the Man Booker longlist. Sabrina makes demands on the reader in precisely the way all good fiction does."<doc-sep>No Julian Barnes, Alan Hollinghurst, Ali Smith, Peter Carey, Pat Barker – this is a longlist to overturn expectations, with a trio of young female authors at its heart. Sally Rooney set the books world buzzing last year with her debut Conversations With Friends; Normal People, due in September, is a girl-meets-boy story with a difference, interrogating the difficulties of sincere communication in a complicated, post-ironic world. It’s even more unusual and assured than her first book. Sophie Mackintosh’s debut The Water Cure is a spare, dreamlike dystopia about the violence of patriarchy; while Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under explores memory, family and gender in the story of a woman searching for her mother, as well as showcasing some wonderful writing about the natural world. The jury includes a crime novelist and a graphic novelist, and so does the longlist: a rare inclusion for crime in the shape of Belinda Bauer’s Snap, a tale of childhood trauma from one of the genre’s most respected authors; and a first appearance for graphic novels with Nick Drnaso’s widely acclaimed Sabrina, in which a young woman’s disappearance becomes fodder for the rolling news cycle and the bored imaginings of conspiracy theorists. The relationship between Drnaso’s eerie, affectless images and muted dialogue, as he lays bare the loneliness and atomisation of the digital age, is powerfully claustrophobic. Poet Robin Robertson’s The Long Take, a novel about the America of the film noir age that mixes verse and prose, provides yet another genre surprise. Readers have become accustomed to the autofiction trend in recent years, merging fiction with memoir; it’s refreshing to find the Booker showcasing other ways of playing with form, seen again in Donal Ryan’s From a Low and Quiet Sea, which juxtaposes different narrative strands to highlight the role of fate and coincidence in ordinary lives. Disgruntlement from the industry over the inclusion of American authors has shown no signs of abating; but after two US winners in a row, this year’s list is heavy on British and Irish authors. And the US choices are interestingly left-field: Sabrina is joined by Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room, a blistering novel about female poverty and incarceration, and Richard Power’s ecological baggy monster of trees and the battle to save them, The Overstory. Canadian author Michael Ondaatje is not only the sole previous winner to appear on the list; earlier this month he took the Golden Man Booker, celebrating 50 years of the prize for The English Patient. His new novel Warlight is a strange, shadowy drama of family and state secrets set in the aftermath of the London blitz. Esi Edugyan, the second Canadian on the list, has taken seven years to follow up her impressive debut Half Blood Blues. Due to be published at the end of August, Washington Black, which begins as the story of a young field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is as harrowing a portrayal of slavery as Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, but it also becomes a globe-trotting, page-turning adventure story. A historical epic with much to say about the present-day world, it must be among the leading contenders. What has suffered this year is international diversity. When the trustees changed the rules for the 2014 award to allow writers from outside the Commonwealth, it was intended to make the Booker truly global. But with only the UK/Ireland and North America represented on the 2018 longlist, this is a narrow snapshot of world literature in English. But what it does achieve is an impressive synthesis between popular and literary tastes. There are many books here which, as the 2011 jury so unfortunately put it, “zip along”, but they also make fascinating innovations in style and genre. The list spotlights the brilliant, little-known Anna Burns, whose Milkman is a disorienting portrait of the Northern Irish Troubles, as well as a truly original debut from Guy Gunaratne, giving a literary voice to underprivileged young Londoners in In Our Mad and Furious City. The most urgent issues of our time – globalisation, migration, gender, environmental collapse, the internet’s effect on identity – are woven into the very fabric of these novels: they make for fresh, exciting reading.<doc-sep>For the first time ever, the longlist for the U.K.’s most prestigious literary award includes a graphic novel. Sabrina, written by a first-time contender for the Man Booker Prize, Nick Drnaso, follows the effects of a 24-hour news cycle after the disappearance of a young woman. The graphic novel was chosen while past Man Booker prize winners, including authors Julian Barnes, Alan Hollinghurst, Pat Barker, and Peter Carey, were passed over for this year’s list. Advertisement Drnaso is in the running for Man Booker’s 50,000 pound prize, equivalent to more than $65,000, alongside Richard Powers, a Pulitzer finalist for his 2007 novel, The Echo Maker, and Michael Ondaatje, the only previous winner of the Booker Prize to make the list. One of the judges, Val McDermid, spoke to the Guardian in praise of Sabrina. Advertisement Advertisement “We all read it and were blown away by it,” said the best-selling crime author. “The graphic novel has increasingly become front and center in terms of storytelling [and] we felt [Sabrina] does just what good fiction should do.” Another graphic novelist, Leanne Shapton, also sits on this year’s panel of judges. Shapton’s most recent work, Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, has recently been in talks for a movie adaptation starring Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman. The Man Booker shortlist will be available on Sept. 20, and the winner will be announced on Oct. 16.<doc-sep>
A graphic novel about a vanished young woman and a thriller about a vanished mother have elbowed their way on to a giant-slaying Man Booker prize longlist that “capture[s] something about a world on the brink”. Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina, the first graphic novel ever to reach the Booker longlist, explores the chilling effect of 24-hour news after a girl has disappeared. Judges picked it as a contender for the £50,000 prize ahead of titles from former winners including Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, Peter Carey and Alan Hollinghurst, describing it as “oblique, subtle [and] minimal” and saying the “changing shape of fiction” meant it was only a matter of time before a graphic novel made the cut. “We all read it and were blown away by it,” said the judge and bestselling crime novelist Val McDermid. “The graphic novel has increasingly become front and centre in terms of storytelling [and] we felt [Sabrina] does just what good fiction should do.” Also in the running for the UK’s most prestigious literary award is a thriller from the crime writer Belinda Bauer. Snap opens with a mother abandoning her three children in a broken-down car and plays out as they struggle to deal with her disappearance. The judges called it an “acute, stylish, intelligent novel about how we survive trauma”, which “undermines the tropes of its own genre and leaves us with something that lingers”. “I’d read it even before I knew I would be a Booker judge and it seemed to me to be an outstanding novel,” said McDermid. “My fellow judges read it and one said, ‘This transcends genre’, and someone else said, ‘This shows what genre can do at its best’ ... It is an extremely clever piece of storytelling with characters you care about, and that’s what we were looking for – something well written that engages with mind and heart.” A longlist that stands out for its “willingness to take risks with form”, according to chair of judges Kwame Anthony Appiah, also features debuts from Sophie Mackintosh and Guy Gunaratne. Mackintosh’s The Water Cure “unpicks patriarchy at its core”, according to the panel, while Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City is “an inner city novel for our times”. The poet Robin Robertson mixes verse and prose in his first novel, The Long Take, while Daisy Johnson’s first novel, Everything Under, is enough to put the 27-year-old alongside Sally Rooney, picked for Normal People, as the youngest authors on this year’s list. Johnson and Rooney are “looking at the world from the perspective of their age and their books have a very different flavour”, McDermid explained, “but they’re there because they impressed us”. Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight has made this year’s Booker longlist. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images Only one former winner made this year’s Booker longlist: Michael Ondaatje, for Warlight, which opens in 1945 with London still reeling from the blitz. The other major name in the running for the Booker is the Pulitzer-winning novelist Richard Powers, selected for his novel The Overstory. With US writers having won the last two Man Booker prizes after the award was opened up to authors from outside the UK and Commonwealth – a decision that Julian Barnes described as “daft” earlier this month – naysayers will be celebrating the fact that just three US writers were longlisted this year: Powers, Drnaso and Rachel Kushner, chosen for The Mars Room. Called “terrifyingly authentic” by judges, The Mars Room follows the story of a woman beginning two consecutive life sentences, plus six years, at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility. The Guardian first book award-winner Donal Ryan makes this list with his story of a Syrian refugee, a care worker and a crooked accountant, From a Low and Quiet Sea. Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black, the story of a slave who becomes the personal servant to an eccentric scientist, and Anna Burns’ Milkman, a look at Ireland during the Troubles through the perspective of a young girl, complete a 13-strong longlist assembled from 171 submissions – the highest number of books ever entered for the prize. “We tried to read blind as much as we could,” said McDermid. “We didn’t care where the writers came from or whether it was their first book or their 40th.