THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
FOR FICTION 2008
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

Shortlist Announced

Two debut novelists
‘intensely readable … page-turning stories’
For the first time, extracts available to download onto mobiles

Aravind Adiga, Sebastian Barry, Amitav Ghosh, Linda Grant, Philip Hensher and Steve Toltz are the six authors shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008, the English-speaking world’s most important literary award. The shortlist was announced by the chair of judges, Michael Portillo, at a press conference at Man Group plc offices in London today (Tuesday 9th September 2008).

The six shortlisted books were chosen from a longlist of 13 and are:

Aravind Adiga The White Tiger Atlantic

Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture Faber and Faber

Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies John Murray

Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs Virago

Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency Fourth Estate

Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole Hamish Hamilton

Michael Portillo, Chair of Judges, comments:

“The judges commend the six titles to readers with great enthusiasm. These novels are intensely readable, each of them an extraordinary example of imagination and narrative. These fine page-turning stories nonetheless raise highly thought-provoking ideas and issues. These books are in every case both ambitious and approachable.”

The 2008 shortlist includes two first time novelists, Aravind Adiga and Steve Toltz. The six authors represent a broad geographical spread with two Indian authors, two English authors, an Australian author and an Irish author.

The youngest on the list, at 34 years old, is Aravind Adiga. Sebastian Barry was shortlisted in 2005 for his novel A Long, Long Way, Linda Grant was longlisted in 2002 for her novel Still Here and Philip Hensher, once a Booker judge himself, was also longlisted in 2002 for his novel The Mulberry Empire.

The winner receives £50,000 and can look forward to greatly increased sales and worldwide recognition. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their own book.

The judging panel for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Michael Portillo, former MP and Cabinet Minister; Alex Clark, editor of Granta; Louise Doughty, novelist; James Heneage, founder of Ottakar’s bookshops and Hardeep Singh Kohli, TV and radio broadcaster.

The winner will be announced on Tuesday 14th October at a dinner at the Guildhall, London. The announcement will be broadcast live on BBC One’s 10 O’Clock News.

This year, the Man Booker Prize has exclusively partnered with mobile site GoSpoken to make extracts from the shortlisted books available to download free onto your mobile phone. They can either be read as text or listened to as audio. The extracts will be available from the moment the shortlist is announced by texting MBP to 60300. This is the first time that any book prize has used mobile technology to promote its shortlist.

On Monday 13th October, the eve of the winner announcement, the Southbank Centre in London will host an evening of readings and discussion with the 2008 shortlisted authors.

FOOTNOTE:

A historical year for the Booker prize
Contemporary, urban life is noticeable by its absence from this year's shortlist

John Sutherland writing in the Guardian comments on the shortlist
Tuesday September 09 2008

Not the most contemporary-looking contemporary fiction ... the

iron rule by which the Man Booker shortlist is drawn up is simple. Every novel should be, in the opinion of the judges, a worthy winner. No longshots. No perhapses. No favours to one's pals or publisher.

Between now and October 10, it's all chemistry.

The panel mix and the fiction mix. Who'll win?

Only the bubbles in the test-tube will tell.None the less there is a flavour - more than one flavour, as it happens - to Portillo's half-dozen. His accompanying statement from the chair strikes a defiant keynote: "intensely readable … page turning … approachable".

None (or at least, not too much) of that boring "literary" crap. Michael's a busy man: still doing his Sunday Times column, still lecturing, still politically active. He wants novels that don't erect fences round themselves; that you don't have to sit down in front of like a burglar cracking a safe.

The other dominant flavour is flight from the here (that being the UK, specifically literary London) and the now (that being 2008). Whatever else, it's the least metropolitan, least up-to-the-minute, shortlist I can recall.

Read his full commentary at the Guardian online.

And here is The Independent's take on it inlcuding the absence of Rushdie from the shortlist.

Personally the two books I am sad/surprised to see omitted are The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser and Netherland by Joseph O'Neill.

And here are Bookie William Hill's odds for those of you that like a flutter:

2/1 Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture
3/1 Linda Grant - The Clothes on Their Backs
3/1 Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole
6/1 Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies
8/1 Philip Hensher - The Northern Clemency
8/1 Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger