The Booker Prize 2022 longlist announced: Read the exciting collection of novels now

Taking inspiration from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Bulawayo’s second novel is set in the animal kingdom of Jidada, an oppressive fictional African country. It’s the story of an uprising in a country that’s stuck in a cycle as old as time and centres around the fall of Old Horse, the long-standing leader. It’s said to be an emotional rollercoaster that takes on big themes of genocide, misogyny and racism.

Trust is a collection of four books, each one telling slightly different versions of Wall Street in the Twenties, leading up to the Great Depression. Centred around a wealthy couple, the judges noted that the book “challenges us to rethink everything we know both about the institutions on which nations are built and the narratives by which stories are told”.

Described as a “page-turner” by the Booker Prize 2022 judges, The Trees opens with a series of murders in a rural part of Mississippi. As the investigation unravels, further eerie revelations are discovered. And the novel is said to provide a powerful critique of racism and police violence.

Set in the 19th century, this novel is centred around the Booths – a family of thespians, drinkers and dreamers who live within a household that’s steeped in racism. As the story unravels, we learn more about each of the six siblings against the backdrop of the American Civil War. But, it’s Johnny’s infamous decision that really shapes the course of history.

Treacle Walker is the story of an introspective young boy, Joe, who forms a friendship with a wandering healer as he tries to make sense of the world. Fusing together myth and folklore, as well as providing an exploration of modern science, Garner’s novel is said to be a moving tale.

Against the backdrop of murderous mayhem in Sri Lanka beset by civil war comes Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. It dissects the dark side of Sri Lanka’s history, with the judges describing it as fizzing with “energy, imagery and ideas”.

Despite being just 116 pages in length, making it the shortest book to ever be recognised by the Booker Prize, Small Things Like These has been described by The Independent as being “a gem” of a novel. Its set in a small Irish town and introduces us to a coal merchant, Bill Furlong, who feels the past rising up within him as he experiences people’s complicit silences regarding church control.

Case Study is centred around a young woman who believes that a psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, was responsible for her sister’s suicide. The book is laid out in a series of notebooks as the woman presents herself as his client, recording her experiences in a bid to discover the truth.

When The Independent’s literary critic reviewed this novel, he noted that it’s a story of two men who arrive to document a small island off the west coast of Ireland.

“Truth and reality become blurred as they attempt to investigate what constitutes identity,” he noted. It offers “beguiling insights into what it means to be the colonised and the coloniser, and is a subtle portrait of character and place”. He praised it for being an “impressive celebration of the need for connection”.

If you’re looking for a coming-of-age novel, Mortimer’s debut is the one to turn to. Telling the story of Lia, a mother who is dying from cancer, Maps of our Spectacular Bodies flashes between the present day and her past life, and interweaves the range of voices. It was noted by the judges as being “deliriously inventive and viscerally moving.”

From the youngest author to ever be shortlisted comes Nightcrawling, a story set in Oakland where the protagonist, Kiera, faces the failures of the justice system as a young Black woman. With themes of poverty, racism and the police, the judges noted it as being a “dazzling and electrifying novel”.

Schwartz reimagines the lives of various feminists from across the 19th and 20th centuries, including Virginia Woolf, Colette and Eleanora Duse. As such, After Sappho is a celebration of these trailblazers who helped to shape the world we live in today.

Oh William! is the third in a series of books about the fictional character Lucy Barton, who the judges have described as being “brittle, damaged, unravelling, vulnerable and most of all, ordinary”. According to the judges, it’s a “meticulous observed writing, full of probing psychological insight”.