Deborah Levy, Hilary Mantel, Alison Moore, Will Self, Tan Twan Eng and
Jeet Thayil are the six shortlisted authors in contention for the Man Booker
Prize 2012, it is announced today, Tuesday 11 September 2012.
The judges praised the powerful language and artistry displayed in the
six books, whose common themes include old age, memory and loss.
The six books, selected from the longlist of 12, are:
Author
Title (Publisher)
Tan Twan
Eng The
Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)
Deborah
Levy Swimming
Home (And Other Stories / Faber & Faber)
Hilary
Mantel Bring
up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)
Alison Moore
The Lighthouse (Salt)
Will
Self
Umbrella (Bloomsbury)
Jeet
Thayil
Narcopolis (Faber & Faber)
At the time of the longlist announcement, Chair of judges Sir Peter
Stothard commented ‘the new has come powering through’. This remains true of
the shortlist, which includes two first novels, from Indian author Jeet Thayil
and East Midlands-based Alison Moore, and three small publishers from
Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Myrmidon Books), North Norfolk (Salt Publishing) and High
Wycombe (And Other Stories).
In an interesting development, Deborah Levy’s novel, Swimming Home,
is now co-published by And Other Stories and Faber & Faber, following a
collaboration on a mass-market edition after Levy was longlisted.
Of the six authors, two have previously been linked to the prize. Hilary
Mantel won the prize in 2009 with Wolf Hall, the first of her Thomas
Cromwell trilogy, and was longlisted in 2005 for Beyond Black. Malaysian
author Tan Twan Eng was longlisted for the prize in 2007 with his debut novel, The
Gift of Rain. Four novelists, including Will Self, a radical of
contemporary literature, appear on the list for the first time.
The shortlist was announced by Sir Peter Stothard, Chair of judges and
Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, at a press conference held at
the Man Group’s London headquarters.
Sir Peter comments: ‘After re-reading an extraordinary longlist of
twelve, it was the pure power of prose that settled most debates. We loved the
shock of language shown in so many different ways and were exhilarated by the
vigour and vividly defined values in the six books that we chose - and in the
visible confidence of the novel's place in forming our words and ideas.’
Stothard was joined at the press conference by the four other members of
the 2012 Man Booker Prize judging panel: Dinah Birch, academic and literary
critic; Amanda Foreman, historian, writer and broadcaster; Dan
Stevens, actor; and Bharat Tandon, academic, writer and reviewer.
This year’s winner will be announced on Tuesday 16 October 2012, at a
dinner at London’s Guildhall, where the announcement of the winner will be
televised by the BBC. Each shortlisted author will receive £2,500 and
a specially commissioned handbound edition of their book. The winner will
receive a further £50,000. The winner may also expect a significant increase in
sales of their book: Julian Barnes’ The Sense of An Ending (Jonathan
Cape, Random House), which won the 2011 prize, has now sold over 300,000 in the
UK in print copies alone.
Ahead of the announcement, there will be a number of public events with
the shortlisted authors including, for the first time this year, Man Booker
Live: a collaboration between the Man Booker Prize and Picturehouse
Entertainment to broadcast ‘Prize Readings’, an evening with the 2012 shortlisted
authors at the Royal Festival Hall at London’s Southbank Centre on Monday 15
October. Cinemas across the UK will screen the event, chaired
by former judge and BBC Radio 4 presenter James Naughtie, the night before the
winner ceremony. Other events include a panel discussion at The
Times Cheltenham Literary Festival on Saturday 13 October
and an audience with the winner at the Apple store, Covent Garden, on Thursday
18 October.
More details of these events and further information about the prize can
be found on the Man Booker Prize website www.themanbookerprize.com.
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