And in case you missed it... the Man Booker Prize shortlist

The Man Booker Prize is one of the world's most important literary awards, with a very straight forward goal– to honour the very best book of the year by a British, Irish or Commonwealth author.

Beginning in 1969, the Man Booker Prize is now in its 44th year and today the shortlist of six books was announced, cutting in half the longlist announced in July.

The panel of judges is chaired by Peter Stothard, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, the six authors/titles to be shortlisted are:

Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)

Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber)
Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)

Alison Moore, The Lighthouse (Salt)
Will Self, Umbrella (Bloomsbury)

Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis (Faber & Faber)

Check out an examination of the shortlisted books

Peter Stothard commented: “After re-reading an extraordinary longlist of twelve, it was the pure power of prose that settled most debates. We loved the shock of language shown in so many different ways and were exhilarated by the vigour and vividly defined values in the six books that we chose – and in the visible confidence of the novel's place in forming our words and ideas.”

The winner for 2012 will be announced on Tuesday, October 16 in a ceremony covered by the BBC. All shortlisted authors win themselves £2,500 and the overall winner receives a further £50,000.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Book review: The life to come by Michelle de Krester

Book review: The Nowhere Child by Christian White

Book news: early release of The Undesirables: Inside Nauru by Mark Isaacs