First time novelists Sam Leith and Manu Joseph join Gary Shteyngart, one of the New Yorker’s 2010 ‘20 under 40’, as they contend against popular columnist India Knight and Catherine O’Flynn, award-winning author of What Was Lost.
The prize, now in its twelfth year, celebrates the novel of the last twelve months that has best captured the comic spirit of P.G. Wodehouse. A year after Ian McEwan’s Solar won the 2010 prize, themes of science and the future return to dominate the shortlist. This is the first time any of these authors have featured on the shortlist, which has previously included award-winning writers such as Howard Jacobson and DBC Pierre.
The five shortlisted novels are:
• Serious Men by Manu Joseph (John Murray)
Shortlisted for the Man Asian Prize in 2010, Joseph’s debut novel is a satirical tale of science, love and hope in modern India centring on Ayyan Mani, lowly assistant to brilliant yet insufferable astronomer, Arvind Acharya, who is obsessed with his theory about microscopic aliens falling to earth.
• Comfort and Joy by India Knight (Penguin, Fig Tree)
From the author of My Life on a Plate and Don't You Want Me, Comfort and Joy tells the ‘wickedly funny [and] painfully honest’ story of Carla Dunphy’s attempts to realise her lifelong ambition to make Christmas perfect.
• The Coincidence Engine by Sam Leith (Bloomsbury)
Described by as ‘Philip K. Dick meets Evelyn Waugh in a fast-paced satire’ and ‘a comic, paranoid romp across America’, this first novel was tipped for success as one of the Waterstone’s 11 debuts to watch.
• The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn (Penguin)
Set in the author’s hometown of Birmingham, this second novel from Catherine O’Flynn follows Frank Allcroft, a regional TV news presenter, who has just been declared ‘the unfunniest man on earth’, as he investigates a mysterious hit and run that killed his (actually quite funny) predecessor. O’Flynn’s first novel, What Was Lost, won the 2007 Costa First Novel Award.
• Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (Granta)
Described by David Mitchell as ‘an intoxicating brew of keen-edged satire, social prophecy, linguistic exuberance and emotional wallop’, this dystopian third novel from Shteyngart explores the value being human in a near-future America on the brink of collapse.
The judges of the prize are: James Naughtie, broadcaster and author; David Campbell, Everyman’s Library publisher and Peter Florence, Director of the Hay Festival. Peter Florence comments on the shortlist: “'We've never needed such a dose of good humour, and this extraordinary shortlist is full of comedy, wit, lightness and frivolity even when facing the darker aspects of the world today.”
As is customary, this year’s winner will be announced just ahead of the Hay festival in late May, followed by an audience with the winner during the festival.
The winner will also be honoured with the presentation of a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, who will be named after their winning title.
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