Booker Prize 2017: Complete list of winners

George Saunders’ audacious debut novel Lincoln in the Bardo claimed the 2017 Man Booker Prize, marking a watershed moment for the celebrated short-story master. After decades of establishing himself as one of America’s most inventive voices in fiction, Saunders surprised many by turning to the long form with a wildly experimental work that imagines Abraham Lincoln grieving his young son in a Washington, D.C. cemetery populated by restless spirits. The Booker Prize judges clearly embraced the novel’s formal ambitions and emotional depth, rewarding a book that defies easy categorization—part historical fiction, part ghost story, part meditation on loss and national trauma.

The 2017 Booker Prize victory underscored the award’s continued appetite for literary risk-taking. Saunders’ win confirmed that the prestigious annual prize, which recognizes the finest English-language novel, remains willing to champion unconventional narratives that challenge readers while delivering genuine insight into the human condition. His achievement resonated particularly because Lincoln in the Bardo balances its playful metafictional techniques—complete with footnotes, stage directions, and a chorus of Civil War-era voices—with profound philosophical questions about grief, mortality, and what it means to truly connect with another person.

The judges’ choice sparked considerable discussion about what contemporary literary fiction could achieve when a writer of Saunders’ stature brought his full imaginative power to bear on a single, ambitious project.

Fiction

• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders