By Liz Hobday

Charlotte Wood has become the first Australian writer in a decade to be shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize.

The author of Stone Yard Devotional is the first Australian to be shortlisted since Richard Flanagan won the Booker in 2014 for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

“I’m just so honoured, and in fact am still having a hard time processing the news,” Wood said in a statement issued by her publisher Allen and Unwin.

No Australian female writer has ever won the Booker Prize, which is worth just under $A100,000.

The author said she was beyond grateful the Booker judges had brought global attention to her book, which is the most personal she had ever written.

“In large part it’s a tribute to my late mother, whom I loved so much,” Wood said.

“We hear a lot about bad mothers in contemporary fiction but not so much about good ones, possibly because they’re harder to make interesting on the page.”

Stone Yard Devotional follows a woman who leaves her marriage and life in Sydney to retreat to a religious community in regional NSW.

“I am so happy for Charlotte, for the short-listing of this marvel of a novel,” Wood’s agent Jenny Darling said.

“It pulls you in by a thread and you cannot let go. It will never leave me.”

The 2024 shortlist features the highest number of women in the award’s 55-year history, with five women and one man on the list.

Last year’s winner was Irish author Paul Lynch and his Dystopian novel Prophet Song.

The winner will be announced in London on November 12.