The Booker Prize shortlist for this year includes a queer love story that is also a Holocaust novel, an Australian woman on a religious retreat to make sense of the world, a British soldier coming to terms with the trauma of World War I, a “space pastoral” about astronauts orbiting the Earth, a reimagining of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the book’s runaway slave, and an investigation of what it is to be human disguised as a spy thriller.

This year’s prize shortlist includes five women, a record number. Even though the judges underlined that each book was selected based only on its merits, Sara Collins, one of the judges, noted that last year’s shortlist included “three Pauls,” a reference to Irish authors Paul Murray, eventual winner Paul Lynch, and Paul Harding. She remarked that “literary recognition is often still reserved for men.”

With his debut book, Wild Houses, Colin Barrett was the only Irish author on this year’s longlist.

Booker shortlist

• James by Percival Everett
• Orbital by Samantha Harvey
• Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
• Held by Anne Michaels
• The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
• Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

The fact that American writers Percival Everett and Rachel Kushner are on the shortlist causes some people to still take issue with them. US authors have been eligible for 11 years; throughout that time, they have placed 24 out of 66 on the shortlist and won only twice. According to prize director Gaby Wood, the Olympics are taking place, not the Commonwealth Games. The first-time Dutch author Yael van der Wouden, Canadian writer Anne Michaels, first-time Australian Charlotte Wood, and British Samantha Harvey are also on this year’s shortlist.