Booker judges give 'patchy' Rushdie the thumbs down
· Enchantress of Florence fails to make shortlist · Rebuff for writer who topped public poll
Charlotte Higgins, chief arts writer at The Guardian,
Wednesday September 10 2008

Salman Rushdie, by far the biggest name on the Man Booker prize longlist, has been snubbed as the judges whittled down the names from 13 to a six-strong shortlist of "page-turners".

The Enchantress of Florence was the favourite to win the prize before the announcement of the shortlist. Midnight's Children, which won the award in 1981, was this year voted the best of the Bookers in a public poll.

"I think Rushdie's writing is patchy, to be honest," said broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli, a member of the judging panel. "He has written some good books and some not-so good books. There is no doubting the man's massive intellect. But I have never known a book split the public so much as Midnight's Children. People will secretly confess to not finishing. Others will secretly confess to hating it. For others, it is the one book they would take to their grave."

Nor did the judges agonise unduly over Rushdie's exclusion.
"In the opinions of five people taken together, The Enchantress of Florence simply wasn't one of the top six books," said the former MP Michael Portillo, the chair of the judges.
"I wouldn't say we had a heated debate over it. We certainly had passionate debates - but there wasn't a particularly passionate debate over this book." Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, the other really weighty name on the longlist, also failed to make the cut.

There was an unusual degree of consensus among the judges, said Portillo. "At every stage there were some books that just leaped out at you." The panel ended up with a list they described as "page-turning" and "readable". According to Portillo: "We have brought you fun."

The biggest names on the list are Sebastian Barry, for The Secret Scripture; Linda Grant, for The Clothes on Their Backs; and Philip Hensher, for The Northern Clemency. The others are Amitav Ghosh's multilayered epic Sea of Poppies, Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, a novel about modern India; and Steve Toltz's anarchic A Fraction of the Whole. The last two are both debut novels.

Read Charoltte Higgins' full piece at the Guardian online.