We are not at all surprised, but very pleased, to see London Writers Award alumna Natasha Brown among the longlisted authors for this year’s Booker Prize.
Natasha’s first book, Assembly, was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Orwell Prize for Fiction.
Universality is her second novel and a, “a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power.” It received rave reviews and Observer commented that “[Universality] confirms Natasha Brown as a major talent.” They were not wrong.
The Booker Prize 2025 judges are Roddy Doyle, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Kiley Reid, Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Power. They commented:
“Natasha Brown’s Universality is a compact yet sweeping satire. Told through a series of shifting perspectives, it reveals the contradictions of a society shaped by entrenched systems of economic, political, and media control. Brown moves the reader with cool precision from Hannah, a struggling freelancer, through to Lenny, an established columnist, unfurling through both of them an examination of the ways language and rhetoric are bound with power structures. We were particularly impressed by the book’s ability to discomfit and entertain, qualities that mark Universality as a bold and memorable achievement.”
The Booker Prize shortlist will be announced at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday 23 September, with the winner revealed on Monday 10 November.
Read all about the Booker Prize longlist on their website.
Posted: Tuesday 29 July 2025