The 2024 Longlist

THE NEW LIFE Tom Crewe (Chatto & Windus)

A debut novel of forbidden love and new ways of living in 1890s London, with themes of love, guilt, shame and freedom at its heart, as men and women daringly re-shape the personal and political world in which they live

A BETTER PLACE Stephen Daisley  (Text Publishing)

New Zealand twin brothers Roy and Tony Mitchell are sent to fight in WWII in this melancholy novel exploring fraternal and romantic love and the brutal effects of war

HUNGRY GHOSTS Kevin Jared Hosein (Bloomsbury)

A Trinidadian novel about violence and religion, family and class in 1940s Trinidad, playing with traditional storytelling techniques, set around an evocative house on a hill and the people who live in the village below

FOR THY GREAT PAIN, HAVE MERCY ON MY LITTLE PAIN Victoria MacKenzie (Bloomsbury)

An exploration of grief, trauma and revelation through this epic yet intimate study of the hidden lives of two extraordinary women, Margery and Julian, whose meeting will change everything

MUSIC IN THE DARK Sally Magnusson (John Murray)

A story of unlooked-for love in later life, told through the brutality of the Highland Clearances and their lasting effects, this is a novel about resilience memory, resurrection, and the parts of us that nobody can take away

CUDDY Benjamin Myers (Bloomsbury)

A bold and experimental retelling of the story of St Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England — told in four parts, spanning the seventh century to present day

MY FATHER’S HOUSE Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)

A novel about faith, love, sacrifice and humanity in the most extreme circumstances, it tells the moving story of Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish priest in Vatican City who rescued victims of the Nazis under the nose of his SS officer nemesis Paul Hauptmann

THE FRAUD Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton)

An exploration of the nature of truth, and how to find it, in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, framed by the Tichborne Trial and told through the lives and testimonies of Mrs Touchet and Andrew Bogle

MISTER TIMELESS BLYTH Alan Spence (Tuttle)

A fictional autobiography of Reginald Horace Blyth, which straddles literature and philosophy, expressed through Blyth’s passions of hard work, books, music, spiritual questioning and a quest for inner peace and the essence of being alive

THE HOUSE OF DOORS Tan Twan Eng (Canongate)

An atmospheric tale of love, betrayal and morality in 1920s Penang, with Willie Somerset Maugham at its centre, exploring the vagaries of his life, his unique creativity, and the personal and political tensions at play in the sultry colony

IN THE UPPER COUNTRY Kai Thomas (Penguin Canada)

A sweeping debut telling the stories of two women — one at the beginning of a journey of self-discovery, the other fulfilling one last, vital act — set in the Black communities of Ontario, the last stop on the infamous Underground Railroad stretching from the south

ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER Rose Tremain (Chatto & Windus)

A short novel exploring themes of thwarted love, true friendship and fate, through the parallel lives of teenage sweethearts Marianne Clifford and Simon Hurst, with Petronella, Marianne’s courageous Scottish friend, always by Marianne’s side