Alan Bennett on
Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse shortlist

Alan Bennett, award-winning dramatist and “Oracle of Little England”, has been shortlisted for the ninth Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. He joins Julian Gough, Garrison Keillor, Will Self, John Walsh and first-time novelist, Joe Dunthorne.

The six shortlisted novels are:

The Uncommon Reader – Alan Bennett (Faber & Faber/Profile Books)
A subversive and hugely enjoyable little book, in which HM the Queen discovers the joy’s of Westminster’s travelling library on one of its weekly visits to the palace.

Submarine – Joe Dunthorne (Hamish Hamilton)
“The sharpest, funniest, rudest account of a periodically troubled male teenager's coming-of-age since The Catcher in the Rye.” (Independent)

Jude: Level 1– Julian Gough (Old St Publishing)
The tale of Jude, a Tipperary orphan who, on his 18th birthday, sets off to discover the wide world and his true parentage - “an evocation of balmy good nature”. (The Observer)

Pontoon – Garrison Keillor (Faber &Faber)
Lake Wobegon revisited after a six year absence, still full of good, loving people who drive each other slightly crazy.

The Butt – Will Self (Bloomsbury)
An insidiously allegorical account of the Western liberal conscience in the aftermath of 9.11, with Self at his most satiric and imaginative.

Sunday at the Cross Bones – John Walsh (Fourth Estate)
“Stuffed full of comic brio” (The Times), these are the imagined journals of Howard Davidson, the celebrated and scandalous Rector of Stiffkey.

The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction is given to the best comic novel published in the last twelve months. Comments David Campbell, Everyman’s publisher, “This is a brilliant and exciting shortlist. All these titles are exceptionally enjoyable books to read.”

The winner will be presented with his prize at the Guardian Hay Festival in late May. He will receive a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année, and, as is customary, will have the honour of a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig named after the triumphant novel. The as-yet-unnamed pig will visit the Festival for the presentation.

The judges for this year’s prize are broadcaster and author, James Naughtie; Everyman publisher, David Campbell; and Director of the Guardian Hay Festival, Peter Florence.

Everyman’s Library publishes more Wodehouse novels than any other publisher in the UK; this year, it will publish its sixtieth Wodehouse. The beautiful hardback editions (all £10.99 each) have all been re-edited and reset with specially commissioned jacket illustrations by Andrzej Klimowski.