The Big Jubilee Read is a 2022 campaign to promote reading for pleasure and to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. A list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, 10 from each decade of Elizabeth II's reign, was selected by a panel of experts and announced by the BBC and The Reading Agency on 18 April 2022. [1] [2] [3]
An initial long-list was compiled from readers' suggestions, and a panel of librarians, booksellers and "literature specialists" made the choice of 70 titles, aiming "to engage all readers in the discovery and celebration of great books". The project received funding from the Arts Council and is supported by Libraries Connected [4] and the Booksellers Association. [3]
The organisers hope that the project will "celebrate the joy of reading and the power that it has to connect people across the country and among nations". [5] Nineteen of the books are winners of the Booker Prize. [6] Most of the books are novels written in English, but there are also poetry collections such as Death of a Naturalist and short story collections including The Boat , while One Moonlit Night was published in Welsh as Un Nos Ola Leuad , Le Procès-Verbal and Our Lady of the Nile were originally in French, and Shuggie Bain is in English but with dialogue in Scots. [7] [8] [9] [10]
The list was published by the BBC on 18 April 2022. [11]
Where an author is given two countries of origin in the above list, 0.5 is given to each country.
| Country | Books | Population (millions, 2022) |
|---|---|---|
 England | 11 | 68 |
 Australia | 7.5 | 26 |
 India | 7 | 1,417 |
 Canada | 5 | 39 |
 Scotland | 3.5 | 5.5 |
 Jamaica | 3 | 3.0 |
 New Zealand | 3 | 5.1 |
 Nigeria | 3 | 218 |
 Sri Lanka | 2.5 | 22 |
 Guyana | 2 | 0.8 |
 Trinidad and Tobago | 2 | 1.4 |
 Wales | 1.5 | 3.2 |
 Grenada | 1 | 0.1 |
 Saint Lucia | 1 | 0.2 |
 Barbados | 1 | 0.3 |
 Belize | 1 | 0.4 |
| Northern Ireland | 1 | 1.9 |
 Singapore | 1 | 5.6 |
 Rwanda | 1 | 14 |
 Cameroon | 1 | 28 |
 Malaysia | 1 | 33 |
 Kenya | 1 | 57 |
 Bangladesh | 1 | 169 |
 Pakistan | 1 | 231 |
 Dominica | 0.5 | 0.1 |
 Mauritius | 0.5 | 1.3 |
 Botswana | 0.5 | 2.3 |
 Sierra Leone | 0.5 | 8.4 |
 Ghana | 0.5 | 33 |
 Tanzania | 0.5 | 64 |
 France [lower-alpha 1] | 0.5 | 66 |
Commentators discussed several omissions of potential titles: J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (ranked number 1 in the 2003 The Big Read); J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books; [12] Terry Pratchett's Discworld series; [13] Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, [14] Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook ; [12] and the work of Dick Francis, reportedly one of the Queen's favourite authors. [14] The inclusion of Northern Irish writer Seamus Heaney was explained by the fact that when he wrote Death of a Naturalist he was living in the UK and published by an English publisher; Heaney identified as an Irish nationalist and had previously objected to his inclusion in The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry . [15] [16]
In The Telegraph , Allison Pearson called it a "'You'll take your medicine and like it' kind of list compiled by people who were scared stiff of not being diverse enough." [17] Similarly, in The Article, David Herman complained: "If you like Hornblower or James Bond, witches and hobbits, great children's literature, popular poetry or drama, The Big Jubilee Read doesn't care. What it does care about is post-colonial, ideally non-white, literature." [18]
Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was and is still recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland during his lifetime. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".
Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel Beckett, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Milan Kundera and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Death of a Naturalist (1966) is a collection of poems written by Seamus Heaney, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. The collection was Heaney's first major published volume, and includes ideas that he had presented at meetings of The Belfast Group. Death of a Naturalist won the Cholmondeley Award, the Gregory Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is the debut novel by Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah. It was published in 1968 by Houghton Mifflin, and then republished in the influential Heinemann African Writers Series in 1969. The novel tells the story of an unnamed man who struggles to reconcile himself with the reality of post-independence Ghana.
Tahmima Anam is a Bangladeshi-born British writer, novelist and columnist. Her first novel, A Golden Age (2007), was the Best First Book winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prizes. Her follow-up novel, The Good Muslim, was nominated for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize. She is the granddaughter of Abul Mansur Ahmed and daughter of Mahfuz Anam.
The Whale Rider is a 1987 novel by New Zealand author Witi Ihimaera. In 2002 it was adapted into a film, Whale Rider, directed by Niki Caro.
The Girls of Slender Means is a novella written in 1963 by British author Muriel Spark. It was included in Anthony Burgess's 1984 book Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939 — A Personal Choice. In 2022, it was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
In the Castle of My Skin is the first and much acclaimed novel by Barbadian writer George Lamming, originally published in 1953 by Michael Joseph in London, and subsequently published in New York City by McGraw-Hill. The novel won a Somerset Maugham Award and was championed by eminent figures Jean-Paul Sartre and Richard Wright, the latter writing an introduction to the book's U.S. edition.
Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew is a 2010 novel by Shehan Karunatilaka. Using cricket as a device to write about Sri Lankan society, the book tells the story of an alcoholic journalist's quest to track down a missing cricketer of the 1980s. The novel was critically hailed on publication, winning awards and much positive review coverage.
Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American writer and fashion designer. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he studied at the Scottish College of Textiles and at London's Royal College of Art, before moving at the age of 24 to New York City, where he built a successful career in fashion design, while also beginning to write. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain – which had initially been turned down by many publishers on both sides of the Atlantic – was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize. His second novel, Young Mungo, was published in April 2022.
Shuggie Bain is the debut novel by Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart, published in 2020. It tells the story of the youngest of three children, Shuggie, growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes in 1980s post-industrial working-class Glasgow.
The Hills Were Joyful Together is a 1953 novel by Jamaican author Roger Mais.
My Bones and My Flute: A Ghost Story in the Old-Fashioned Manner is a 1955 novel by Guyanese author Edgar Mittelholzer.
When Rain Clouds Gather is a 1968 novel by South African-Motswana author Bessie Head.
Salt is a 1996 novel by Trinidadian author Earl Lovelace. It won the 1997 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
Tsotsi is the only novel written by South African playwright Athol Fugard. It was published in 1980 although written some time earlier, and it was the basis of the 2005 film of the same name. It has been republished in several editions including in 2019 by Canongate (ISBN 978-1786896155).
Jing-Jing Lee is a Singaporean author who writes in the English language; her best-known work is the novel How We Disappeared (2019).
The Bone Readers is a 2016 novel by Grenadan British author Jacob Ross, the second in his "Camaho Quartet." In 2017, it won the inaugural Jhalak Prize. In 2022, The Bone Readers was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
The Night Tiger: A Novel is a 2019 novel by Malaysian author Yangsze Choo, written in English.
How We Disappeared: A Novel is a 2019 historical fiction novel by Singaporean author Jing-Jing Lee, written in English.
Libraries Connected is proud to support The Reading Agency and BBC Arts' Big Jubilee Read
