This Year’s (Literary) Crown Jewels

The Booker Prize 2023 Longlist has just been announced and there’s only one thing you need to know: there’s a Canuck on the world’s most prestigious literary list. Congratulations to Sarah Bernstein and her novel Study for Obedience, Ms. Bernstein’s second novel and first nomination for a Booker Prize. Per the Booker website:

Sarah Bernstein is a Canadian writer and scholar who was born in Montreal and now lives in the Scottish Highlands, where she teaches literature and creative writing.

Also per the same site, here’s a brief intro to the novel:

Study for Obedience is an absurdist, darkly funny novel about the rise of xenophobia, as seen through the eyes of a stranger in an unnamed town – or is it? Bernstein’s urgent, crystalline prose upsets all our expectations, and what transpires is a meditation on survival itself.

It goes without saying that if Justin Trudeau can persuade Taylor Swift to end her Eras Tour in Canada, then he can get the Booker Prize jury to properly see the chesterfield for the sofas, the two-fer for the cases, and the klick for the miles, and have #BookerSarah become Canada’s fourth Booker Prize-winning author. Here’s the complete list of books and authors up for the Holy Grail of Literature.

The Booker Prize 2023 Longlist

The House of Doors, by Tan Twan Eng

The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray

Western Lane, by Chetna Maroo

In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes

Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch

All the Little Bird-Hearts, by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

Pearl, by Siân Hughes 

This Other Eden, by Paul Harding

How to Build a Boat, by Elaine Feeney

If I Survive You, by Jonathan Escoffery

Study for Obedience, by Sarah Bernstein

Old God’s Time, Sebastian Barry

A Spell of Good Things, by Ayòbámi Adébáyò