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Flanagan on Booker Prize longlist

Thursday, 24 July 2014   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Vintage) is among the 13 titles longlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize.

The full longlist is:

  • To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (Joshua Ferris, Viking)
  • The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Richard Flanagan, Vintage)
  • We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Karen Joy Fowler, Serpent’s Tail)
  • The Blazing World (Siri Hustvedt, Sceptre)
  • J (Howard Jacobson, Jonathan Cape)
  • The Wake (Paul Kingsnorth, Unbound)
  • The Bone Clocks (David Mitchell, Sceptre)
  • The Lives of Others (Neel Mukherjee, Chatto & Windus)
  • Us (David Nicholls, Hodder & Stoughton)
  • The Dog (Joseph O’Neill, Fourth Estate)
  • Orfeo (Richard Powers, Atlantic)
  • How to Be Both (Ali Smith, Hamish Hamilton)
  • History of the Rain (Niall Williams, Bloomsbury).

 

This is the first time the prize has been open to writers from outside the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth countries after eligibility rules were changed last year. Four US authors and one Irish-American author are on this year’s longlist.

Five of the titles on the longlist are yet to be published internationally or locally, and will be released in Australia in the coming months. They are: J (Howard Jacobson, Jonathan Cape), The Bone Clocks (David Mitchell, Sceptre), Us (David Nicholls, Hodder & Stoughton), The Dog (Joseph O’Neill, Fourth Estate) and How to Be Both (Ali Smith, Hamish Hamilton). A further title, The Wake (Paul Kingsnorth), from crowdfunded UK publisher Unbound, will be distributed by A&U in August.

Chair of judges A C Grayling said: ‘This is a diverse list of ambition, experiment, humour and artistry. The novels selected are full of wonderful stories and fascinating characters. The judges were impressed by the high quality of writing and the range of issues tackled—from 1066 to the future, from a PoW camp in Thailand, to a dentist’s chair in Manhattan; from the funny to the deeply serious, sometimes in the same book.’

The shortlist will be announced on 9 September, ahead of the winners announcement on 14 October. Each of the shortlisted authors is awarded £2500 (A$4510) and a specially bound edition of their book. The winner receives a further £50,000 (A$90,250).

Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North was previously shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. A spokesperson for Random House said there were plenty of copies in stock.

For more information, visit the Man Booker Prize website here.

 

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