United States writer Hanya Yanagihara favorite for Booker Prize

The victor of the Man Booker Prize 2015 will be announced tomorrow.

British bookmakers say Yanagihara is favourite for the prize, which expanded entries to English-language writers of all nationalities two years ago.

The six shortlisted authors are Marlon James, Tom McCarthy, Chigozie Obioma, Sunjeev Sahota, Anne Tyler and Hanya Yanagihara. William Hill said his novel, which explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s, had moved up from fifth favourite to second favourite. It had previously been restricted to writers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth of former British colonies.

Author Hanya Yanagihara poses with her book “A Little Life” on stage at the Royal Festival Hall in London, Monday, October 12, 2015.

Yanagihara’s “A Little Life” at present leads the market at 5/6, and has been the leading contender since the July longlist announcement. A James victory would represent the first Man Booker Prize for a Caribbean author.

From United Kingdom author Tom McCarthy, the only shortlisted author to have been nominated for a Booker before, “Satin Island” centres on a “corporate anthropologist” named U in contemporary London as he undertakes two tasks assigned him by his employers, all the while getting caught up in his own quest to find the meaning of our times.

Yanagihara’s story follows four young men from university to adulthood with a particular focus on the emotional pain of one, lawyer and mathematician Jude St Francis.

Author Marlon James poses with his book “A Brief History of Seven Killings” on stage at the Royal Festival Hall in London, Monday, October 12, 2015.

Author Sunjeev Sahota poses with his book “The Year of The Runaways” on stage at the Royal Festival Hall in London, Monday, October 12, 2015. When Hilary Mantel won for Tudor saga “Wolf Hall” in 2009, she went from modestly successful novelist to literary superstar.

Marlon James is the first Jamaican-born author to be shortlisted for the prize.