The shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize, which rewards the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland, was announced in London today:
Darkmans by Nicola Barker (4th Estate)
The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape); U.S.: Grove/Black Cat (September 2007)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton); U.S.: Harcourt
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray); U.S.: Dial
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape); U.S.: Talese/Doubleday
Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster); U.S.: S&S
"Selecting a shortlist this year from what was widely seen as an exciting longlist was a tough challenge," said Howard Davies, Chair of Judges. "We hope the choices we have made after passionate and careful consideration, will attract wide interest."
The winner receives £50,000. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their own book.
The judging panel for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science; Wendy Cope, poet; Giles Foden, journalist and author; Ruth Scurr, biographer and critic; and Imogen Stubbs, actor and writer.
Last year’s winner, Kiran Desai, also won the NBCC award in fiction for her novel The Inheritance of Loss.
The winner will be announced on Tuesday, October 16th, at an awards ceremony at the Guildhall, London.
