Milkman

Anna Burns · b. 1962 · Northern Ireland

Why it matters

In an unnamed Belfast, 'middle sister' reads while walking and is claimed, deniably and terrifyingly, by a paramilitary called the milkman. The 2018 Booker winner: surveillance, gossip, and sexual menace rendered in a voice like no other in contemporary fiction.

At a glance

Long looping paragraphs in which no person or place is ever named; the style is the point.