The literary world holds its breath as the prestigious Booker Prize 2025 winner is set to be unveiled at a glitzy ceremony in London tonight. For audiences in India, the announcement will come in the early hours of Tuesday, at 3 am IST. This moment brings months of speculation to an end, crowning one author with fiction's most coveted honour, a £50,000 (approximately ₹66 lakh) prize, a guaranteed surge in book sales, and a permanent place in literary history.
The Six Finalists Vying for the Crown
The suspense revolves around a diverse shortlist of six authors, each with a powerful novel. The finalists for the Booker Prize 2025 are:
- Kiran Desai for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
- Andrew Miller for The Land in Winter
- David Szalay for Flesh
- Susan Choi for Flashlight
- Katie Kitamura for Audition
- Benjamin Markovits for The Rest of Our Lives
Their stories traverse a wide emotional and geographical landscape, from icy English settings to explorations of the immigrant experience in America, mapping universal themes of love, loss, and belonging.
India's Enduring Bond with the Booker Prize
India has a rich and celebrated history with the Booker, making Kiran Desai's potential win a focal point for Indian readers. The nation has cheered for its literary champions over the decades, including V.S. Naipaul (1971), Salman Rushdie (1981), Arundhati Roy (1997), Kiran Desai herself (2006), and Aravind Adiga (2008).
This connection has only strengthened on the international stage. In a landmark achievement, Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell won the International Booker Prize in 2022 for Tomb of Sand, the first Hindi novel to receive the honour. This was followed in 2024 by Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi winning for Heart Lamp, a collection translated from Kannada.
What a Win Would Mean
Beyond the substantial cash prize, winning the Booker Prize guarantees an author unprecedented visibility and a dramatic increase in readership across the globe. For Kiran Desai, a second win would cement her status as one of the most important literary voices of her generation, joining an elite group of double winners. The announcement will be a defining moment for the winning author's career and for the future of their work.
The ceremony in London marks the culmination of a year of literary buzz, with critics, fellow writers, and readers eagerly awaiting the final decision. All eyes are now on the judges as they prepare to reveal which of these six remarkable novels will take home the Booker Prize 2025.
