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The 2015 Folio Prize Shortlist

By

Bulletin

MasterRe_275 This morning, the Folio Prize announced the eight novels on their 2015 shortlist. The prize, now in its second year, is the only major English-language book award open to writers around the world; it aims “to celebrate the best fiction of our time, regardless of form or genre.” Its chair of judges, William Fiennes, told the Guardian that the books on this year’s list “say something true about human experience in a way that feels like something new”: “There’s dazzle and wildness and experiment hand in hand with a deep core commitment to human struggles and fervors and longings.”

Plenty of that dazzle and wildness is already familiar to our readers, who have encountered three of this year’s shortlisted novels in The Paris Review. Parts of Ben Lerner’s 10:04 appeared in our Summer 2013 and Spring 2014 issues; our Winter 2014 issue included an extract from Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation; and in that same issue, we began to serialize the entirety of Rachel Cusk’s Outline. We’re delighted that the three of them have been recognized for their work.

The full shortlist is below—congratulations to all the nominees. The winner will be announced on March 23.

10:04 by Ben Lerner
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Family Life by Akhil Sharma
How to Be Both
by Ali Smith
Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín
Outline by Rachel Cusk