Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie in running for Booker Prize

Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Testaments,” the highly anticipated sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” was announced here on Wednesday as one of the books in the running for the Booker Prize, Britain’s most prestigious literary award.

“A ferocious nondisclosure agreement” prevented the prize’s judges revealing any of the book’s plot, they said in a joint statement announcing the list of 13 competitors. But the novel is “terrifying and exhilarating,” they added.

Atwood, whose novel “The Blind Assassin” won the Booker Prize in 2000, faces strong competition for the award. Other nominated books include Salman Rushdie’s forthcoming “Quichotte,” about a travelling salesman who drives across the United States, and “10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World” by Elif Shafak, about a prostitute in Istanbul.

Little is known about “The Testaments,” except that it is set 15 years after “The Handmaid’s Tale” and is narrated by three female characters. Last year, Atwood said that she wanted “The Testaments” to explore parallels between her imaginary dystopia and the current political climate.

The list of nominees is dominated by novels inspired by political crises, such as John Lanchester’s “The Wall,” set on an island surrounded by a concrete barrier to keep rising seas and immigrants out. Mexican author Valeria Luiselli’s “Lost Children Archive,” about child migrants, has also made the cut.

The nominated books “imagine our world, familiar from news cycle disaster and grievance, with wild humour, deep insight and a keen humanity,” said Peter Florence, the chair of the judges, in a statement.

Other books on the list are less political, such as Oyinkan Braithwaite’s comic thriller, “My Sister, The Serial Killer.”

The nominees will be narrowed down to a shortlist of six that will be revealed Sep 3, and the winner will be announced Oct 14.

The nominees in full are:

Margaret Atwood, “The Testaments”

Kevin Barry, “Night Boat to Tangier”

Oyinkan Braithwaite, “My Sister, The Serial Killer”

Lucy Ellmann, “Ducks, Newburyport”

Bernardine Evaristo, “Girl, Woman, Other”

John Lanchester, “The Wall”

Deborah Levy, “The Man Who Saw Everything”

Valeria Luiselli, “Lost Children Archive”

Chigozie Obioma, “An Orchestra of Minorities”

Max Porter, “Lanny”

Salman Rushdie, “Quichotte”

Elif Shafak, “10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World”

Jeanette Winterson, “Frankissstein”

© 2019 New York Times News Service