D.J. Taylor is the bookmakers' favourite to win the Man Booker Prize 2011

Literary Culture@ Suite 101

Derby Day by D.J. Taylor is favourite to win the Man Booker Prize according to bookmaking firm Ladbrokes.

With just over a week (August 28, 2011) until the shortlist is announced, D. J. Taylor’s Derby Day, is favourite to win the Man Booker Prize in 2011. Ladbrokes, a leading UK online bookmaker, currently has Derby Day at odds of 4 to 1.
When the longlist of 13 was announced on 26 July, The Guardian’s Lindesay Irvine speculated that Alan Hollinghurst would almost certainly become the bookmakers' favourite. But, as of today, Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child is currently sitting in equal third on the list with odds of 6 to 1. Sharing third place is Julian Barnes for The Sense of an Ending.
Sitting in second place is Stephen Kelman and Pigeon English. Kelman is one of four debut writers to make the Booker longlist in 2011. Kelman’s novel has a somewhat fraught path to publication. It was almost lost in a literary agent’s slush pile, before being discovered and becoming the subject of a bidding war, eventually to be published by Bloomsbury. The other debut novelists on the list are A. D. Miller, Yvette Edwards and Patrick McGuinness

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