Lesbian author Emma Donoghue’s Room has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Born in Dublin but now living in Canada with her partner and their children, Donoghue’s 2000 work of historical fiction, Slammerkin, was a Main Selection of the Book of the Month Club, won the 2002 Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction, and was a finalist in the 2001 Irish Times Irish Fiction Prize. Her 2004 novel Lifemask, a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award, tells the startling true story of a love triangle in 1790s London and her 2008 work The Sealed Letter is a domestic thriller about an 1860s cause celebre (the Codrington Divorce), and joint winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.
2010’s Room tells the story from the point of view of five-year-old Jack, who has never ventured outside an 11’ X 11’ shed he shares with his mother. His only other human interaction is with his father who is also his grandfather.
“Room is that rarest of entities, an entirely original work of art. I mean it as the highest possible praise when I tell you that I can’t compare it to any other book. Suffice to say that it’s potent, darkly beautiful, and revelatory,” writes The Hours author Michael Cunningham.
Donoghue is one of two women whose novel made the short list for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. Here are the finalists.
Peter Carey - Parrot And Olivier In America
Emma Donoghue - Room
Damon Galgut - In A Strange Room
Howard Jacobson - The Finkler Question
Andrea Levy - The Long Song
Tom McCarthy - C
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