Stack shot of shortlisted titles

Man Booker Prize 2009 Shortlist announced

J M Coetzee in running for first hat trick

8 September 2009

A S Byatt, J M Coetzee, Adam Foulds, Hilary Mantel, Simon Mawer and Sarah Waters are today, Tuesday 8 September, announced as the shortlisted authors for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.  The shortlist was announced by Chair of judges James Naughtie at a press conference held at the Man Group plc's London headquarters.

The six books, selected from the Man Booker Prize longlist of 13, are:

Author                                  Title                                                       Publisher

A S Byatt The Children's Book (Random House, Chatto and Windus)

J M Coetzee Summertime (Random House, Harvill Secker)

Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Random House, Jonathan Cape)

Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)

Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown)

Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Little, Brown, Virago)

Chair James Naughtie, comments:

"We're thrilled to be able to announce such a strong shortlist, so enticing that it will certainly give us a headache when we come to select the winner. The choice will be a difficult one. There is thundering narrative, great inventiveness, poetry and sharp human insight in abundance.

"These are six writers on the top of their form. They've given us great enjoyment already, and it's a measure of our confidence in their books that all of us are looking forward to reading them yet again before we decide on the prizewinner. What more could we ask?"

Having previously won in 1999 with Disgrace and 1983 with Life & Times of Michael K, South African writer J.M. Coetzee would be the first author to win the Man Booker Prize three times if successful this year.  A.S. Byatt is in the running for a second win - her novel Possession won the Booker Prize in 1990.  Hilary Mantel's Beyond Black was longlisted in 2005 and both Mantel and Byatt have been judges of the prize.  Sarah Waters has been shortlisted twice for Fingersmith (2002) and The Night Watch (2006).  The youngest on the list, at 34, is Adam Foulds and Simon Mawer is shortlisted for his eighth novel, The Glass Room. 

The winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be revealed on Tuesday 6 October 2009 at a dinner at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast on BBC News across television, radio and online.  The winning author will receive £50,000 and can look forward to greatly increased sales and worldwide recognition.  Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their own book.

Chaired by broadcaster and author James Naughtie, the 2009 judges are Lucasta Miller, biographer and critic; Michael Prodger, Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph; Professor John Mullan, academic and author and Sue Perkins, comedian and broadcaster.

For the second consecutive year the Man Booker Prize has teamed up with GoSpoken to provide free audio extracts from all 13 longlisted titles downloadable to your mobile phone.  Visit our audio page to listen online or text MBP to 60300* to download to your mobile phone. 

Read the full press release in our Media centre

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