Man Booker long list annouced

Indian/Australian author Aravind Adiga poses after winning the 2008 Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker prize ‘promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year’. The panel of judges have now whittled down the 132 submitted novels to the thirteen book, Man Booker long list.  The long list will in turn be reduced to six books over the next month and the winner of the £50,000 prize will be annouced on the 6th October, 2009.

The prize will be awarded to the author of the best, eligible full-length novel in the opinion of the judges. The Prize may not be divided or withheld.  To be eligible’ the book has to be a full-length novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth, or the Republic of Ireland, and published in the current year. The novel must be an original work in English (not a translation) and must not be self-published’.

The judges

In the chair is the well known radio broadcaster James Naughtie. He  is also a member of the advisory board of the Edinburgh International Festival, a patron of the Prince of Wales Foundation for Children and the Arts, a trustee of the Classical Opera Company, a trustee of the Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries and a patron of Southbank Sinfonia. In 2008 he was appointed Chancellor of the University of Stirling.

Lucasta Miller is best known as the author of The Bronte Myth and has worked for many years as a critic, most recently for The Guardian Review.

John Mullan is Professor of English at University College London. He is the author of Anonymity. A Secret History of English Literature (Faber) and How Novels Work (Oxford University Press). He has published widely on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature.

Sue Perkins is a comedian, presenter, broadcaster and scriptwriter. She regularly appears on radio and television programmes such as Newsnight Review, Have I Got News For You, Just a Minute and The News Quiz.

Michael Prodger has been a literary journalist for many years and is Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph. He also writes regularly on art for a number of publications, including The Sunday Telegraph, Standpoint and The Spectator.

The Long List

The Children’s Book

AS Byatt

Set at the turn of the 20th Century, it is a novel about children – and on the side of the children – who are lost, cheated, and finally destroyed by their elders.

Brooklyn

Colm Toibin

In the 1950s a young Irish woman emigrates to Brooklyn only to be summoned back to Ireland after receiving tragic news forcing her to make heartbreaking decisions between personal freedom and duty.

The Quickening Maze

Adam Foulds

Based on real events in Epping Forest on the edge of London around 1840, this book centres on the first incarceration of the great nature poet John Clare.

How to Paint a Dead Man

Sarah Hall

Covering half a century, Sarah Hall’s fourth novel is a fierce study of art and its place in our lives.

The Wilderness

Samantha Harvey

The story of Jake Jameson, a 65-year-old architect on the cusp of retirement whose memories are slowly being eroded by Alzheimer’s.

The Glass Room

Simon Mawer

Set in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s it follows a newly-wed couple – a Jew and a gentile – as their optimism fades when the storm clouds of the Second World War gather and the family must flee, accompanied by the husband’s lover and her child.

Summertime

JM Coetzee

Completing the majestic trilogy of fictionalised memoir begun with Boyhood and Youth. Due to be published in September.

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel

Novel set in 16th-century England which focuses on the rise of Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son who rose to one of the highest offices before fatally offending Henry VIII.

Me Cheeta

James Lever

The story of Cheeta the Chimp, simian star of the big screen, on a behind-the-scenes romp through the golden years of Hollywood.

Not Untrue & Not Unkind

Ed O’Loughlin

A story about friendship, rivalry and betrayal among a group of journalists and photographers covering the wars in Africa.

Heliopolis

James Scudmore

A rag-to-riches tale about Ludo, a young man born in Sao Paulo who has developed an obsessive, adulterous love for his adoptive sister, whose husband is his only friend.

Love and Summer

William Trevor

Set in a small Irish town, it follows its inhabitants during one summer and explores the themes of suspicion, guilt, forbidden love and the possibility of starting over.

The Little Stranger

Sarah Waters

In a post-war summer in rural Warwickshire a doctor is called out to attend to a family living in a haunted mansion, struggling to keep pace with a changing society.

Links

Man Booker website

Guardian article