Cal Flyn, Deputy Editor

The Walter Scott Prize seeks to highlight the very best of historical fiction—and in 2021, we find the shortlist dominated by Australian writers. Katharine Grant, the acclaimed novelist and chair of the judges, returns to Five Books to discuss the cream of this year’s crop, and the art of transforming the historical record into a creative exercise.

Every year the International Booker Prize judges read dozens of novels from around the world, which are newly translated into English. Here Lucy Hughes-Hallett—award-winning author and chair of this year’s judging panel—talks us through the six books that made their 2021 shortlist of the best world literature.

Ursula Le Guin’s most groundbreaking books are considered landmark texts in speculative fiction, exploring themes of colonisation, gender, nationalism and environmentalism through allegorical means. Here, the science fiction scholar Sherryl Vint selects five of the best books by Ursula Le Guin and examines her legacy as one of the great American writers.

Fantasy writers often create vivid, intricately detailed worlds in which their stories unfold. Rich mythmaking of this kind often features alternative religions, languages and cultures, and is known among fans and scholars as ‘mythopoeia’. Here, Samantha Shannon—author of the internationally bestselling The Bone Season sequence—recommends five of the best mythopoeic fantasy books.

Postcolonial literature brings together writings from formerly colonised territories, allowing commonalities across disparate cultures to be identified and examined. Here, the University of Toronto academic Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb recommends five key works that explore philosophical and political questions through allegory, personal reflection and powerful polemic.

Black British writers have been storming the bestseller charts in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. Here, Jacqueline Roy—the novelist and lecturer in Black literature—selects five of the best books by Black British writers that deserve more attention.

Experimental fiction often uses unusual forms of syntax, style, or form—perhaps taking the form of fragments, footnotes or parallel narratives. Here Rebecca Watson, author of the critically acclaimed experimental novel little scratch, recommends five of the best experimental novels and explains why a writer might choose to bend the rules—and to what effect.

The acclaimed novelist Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground, recommends five of the best novellas: short works of fiction that offer the power and intensity of a novel in little more than 100 pages. From an epic-in-miniature set in the American West to an infamous story of bestial love, these books offer short, sharp shocks of fiction that can be enjoyed over a single evening.

Elizabeth Taylor, the author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics’ Circle biography committee, discusses their 2021 shortlist for the title of the best biography—including a revelatory new book about the life of Malcolm X, a group biography of artists in the 1960s, and a book built from a cache of letters written in Japan’s shogun era.

Human traits are a product of natural selection—and the story of how we have evolved explains many of our psychological quirks today. Chris Paley, author of Unthink and Beyond Bad, recommends five of the best evolutionary psychology books—and explains how experimental data might finally get to the bottom of the question of free will.