Exciting longlist leaves the 2009 Man Booker Prize wide open

Each July the literary world holds its breath as the longlist for the Man Booker Prize is announced. This prestigious award is the literary equivalent of an Academy Award, guaranteeing the winner a windfall in book sales and the epithet, “Booker Prize-winning author”.

Containing 13 titles, the Booker longlist has been dubbed “The Booker Dozen”. Some of the novels have already garnered glowing reviews, not surprisingly considering that no less than six of the authors have previously been longlisted or shortlisted for the award. Two (A.S. Byatt and Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee) have previously won the prize, and their respective novels (The Children’s Book and Summertime) are hot favourites to walk off with the 2009 Man Booker.

However, every year this prestigious award seems to throw up a surprise or two: previous shocks have included the failure of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy to be nominated in 1994, while in the same year a diarist from The Spectator magazine filleted James Kelman’s winning novel How Late it Was, How Late and counted no less than 357 expletives. In 1980 Anthony Burgess refused to attend the prize giving ceremony unless his novel, Earthly Powers, was guaranteed the prize. In the event he watched it on TV and is said to have ‘spontaneously combusted’ when his rival, William Golding’s novel Rites of Passage, was declared the winner.

This year’s judges, a panel chaired by broadcaster and writer James Naughtie, consisting of biographer and critic Lucasta Miller, Michael Prodger (Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph), academic, journalist and broadcaster Professor John Mulland and the comedienne Sue Perkins, will have a difficult job in deciding on a shortlist.

Having already whittled down a massive 132 books to a more manageable 13, the panel has taken on a massive amount of reading to date, yet on Tuesday September 8th they must announce the shortlist from which the final winner will be announced on Tuesday October 6th.

With literary heavyweights such as William Trevor and Colm Toibin competing with stellar talents like Hilary Mantel and Sarah Waters, only the most compulsive gambler would be tempted to place a bet on this year’s victor.

Visit www.themanbookerprize.com for more information.

New post on at Monday, 24 August, 2009, 8:23 am and is archived in Culture, Lifestyle, People. Subscribe to answers with RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.