“George Saunder’s surreal, experimental first novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo,” won the Man Booker Prize on Oct. 17. The long-awaited first novel by the National Book Award-nominated New York Times best-selling author of “The Tenth of December,” unfolds in a cemetery in 1862, where a grieving Abraham Lincoln visits the crypt that holds the body of his 11-year-old son, Willie, who died of typhoid fever. At the graveyard, Willie’s spirit is joined by a garrulous, motley community of ghosts who exist in the liminal state between life and death.  Upon being notified of the prize, Saunders said he was encouraged that the judges had recognized such an unconventional novel. “For me, the nice thing is that the book is hard, and it’s kind of weird and it’s not a traditional novel. I didn’t do it just to be fancy, but because there was this emotional core I could feel, and that form was the only way I could feel, and that form was the only way I could get to it.”