The shortlist of this year’s Man Booker Prize for fiction was announced yesterday.
As reflected in the long list, a noticeable trend towards unknown authors and small publishing houses has made itself felt in this year’s nominations. Whilst previous nominees Carol Birch and Julian Barnes (the favourite to win) each make it to the shortlist, two of the six nominations go to debut novelists. Meanwhile, four of the six nominated titles were printed by smaller publishing houses: perhaps suggesting a shift in attitudes towards the changing publishing industry.
There’s also a first for this year’s shortlist in the form of Patrick deWitt’s novel The Sisters Brothers, believed to be the first Western to be make it to the coveted top six.
This year, 138 books were marked for consideration before being whittled down to the top six. Head of the judging panel, Dame Stella Rimmington said; “Inevitably it was hard to whittle down the longlist to six titles. We were sorry to lose some great books. But, when push came to shove, we quickly agreed that these six very different titles were the best.”
The winner of this year’s prize will be announced on October the 18th and in the immediate run up, there will be several author events with the writers of the short listed titles, details of which will be announced in due course on the Man Booker website.
Shortlist
- Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
- Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
- Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
- Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail)
- Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
- A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
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