Man Booker longlist announced, includes 5 Americans

The Londoner, previously nominated for The Booker in 2010, is the author of a string of novels and regularly writes about art and literature in newspapers and magazines. Administration of the prize was transferred to the Booker Prize Foundation in 2002, and the title sponsor became the investment company Man Group, which opted to retain Booker as part of the official title of the prize.

The prize was originally open only to authors from the UK and Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe. Discussions weren’t always peaceful, but they were always very friendly.

“The range of different performances and forms of these novels is awesome”.

The list, chosen from 156 entries and announced Wednesday, includes “A Brief History of Seven Killings” by Marlon James, the first Jamaica-born Booker contender. Lalami’s third novel, The Moor’s Account, made the list and has inspired something of a breakout year for the Moroccan-born California transplant.

Only one previous victor, Anne Enright, is longlisted. The Irish writer won the prize in 2007 with The Gathering. Australian writer Peter Carey and South African Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee are the only two other authors who have won the Booker Prize twice. “I’m thrilled and grateful and surprised to be on the list”. The longlist of 13 novels will be whittled down to a shortlist of six that will be announced September 15, with the victor named at a gala in London on October. 13. The ceremony will be broadcast by the BBC. Past winners include Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel, Yann Martel, Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje. Yep, we counted. Who is eligible? But he welcomed last year’s rule-change because it was “coherent and clear”, pointing out that national status is in any case an increasingly blurred category.

Authors on the shortlist will receive a prize of £2,500 (approximately $3,900) and a specially bound edition of their book.

Sunjeev Sahota (U.K.), “The Year of the Runaways“.

Obioma’s novel has the distinction of being praised by former Booker victor Eleanor Catton, who accurately described the book as “freighted with death” – “death” being the payload missing most from contemporary fiction.

Trained violinist Smaill offered one of hundreds of debut dystopian fictions this year, yet her novel, which deals with collective memory, was nonetheless compared to Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant.

Anna started out with a brief introduction to the book, speaking on the way she wove the ideas of memory into the story.