Burnt Sugar by Indian-origin author Avni Doshi is among the 13 books in the 50,000 pounds Booker Prize 2020 longlist announced recently.

Apart from Burnt Sugar, two titles from Bloomsbury Apeirogon by Colum McCann and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid are also among the other 13 books.

Jury chair Margaret Busby has sais that each of the books “carry an impact… deserving of wide readership”.

The longlist was drawn up on July 28 by a panel of five judges.

Apart from Busby, other judge included editor, literary critic and former publisher author Lee Child; author and critic Sameer Rahim; writer and broadcaster Lemn Sissay; and classicist and translator Emily Wilson.

The list was chosen from 162 novels published in the UK or Ireland between October 1, 2019, and September 30, 2020.

The Booker Prize is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland.

The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 15 and the winner, who can expect international recognition, will be announced in November.

Each of the shortlisted authors will receive 2,500 pounds and a specially bound edition of their book.

The 2020 longlist, or ‘The Booker Dozen’ as it is known, is- Avni Doshi (US) Burnt Sugar (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House); Diane Cook (US) The New Wilderness (Oneworld Publications); Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe) This Mournable Body (Faber & Faber), Gabriel Krauze (UK) Who They Was (4th Estate, HarperCollins), Hilary Mantel (UK), The Mirror & The Light (4th Estate, HarperCollins); Colum McCann (Ireland/US) Apeirogon (Bloomsbury Publishing), Maaza Mengiste (Ethiopia/US) The Shadow King (Canongate Books), Kiley Reid (US) Such a Fun Age (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury Publishing); Brandon Taylor (US) Real Life (Originals, Daunt Books Publishing); Anne Tyler (US) Redhead by The Side of The Road (Chatto & Windus, Vintage); Douglas Stuart (Scotland/US) Shuggie Bain (Picador, Pan Macmillan); Sophie Ward (UK) Love and Other Thought Experiments (Corsair, Little, Brown); and C Pam Zhang (US) How Much of These Hills is Gold (Virago, Little, Brown).

“Each of these books carries an impact that has earned it a place on the longlist, deserving of a wide readership,” IANS reported quoting Busby.

“Included are novels carried by the sweep of history with memorable characters brought to life and given visibility, novels that represent a moment of cultural change, or the pressures an individual faces in pre- and post-dystopian society,” she further added.