Emma Donoghue shortlisted for Booker Prize
More photos:
Related Articles
Tuesday September 07 2010
Irish writer Emma Donoghue has been named on the shortlist for this year's Man Booker Prize for Fiction with her novel Room.
The 40-year-old, born in Dublin and now living in Canada, is the bookie's 3/1 joint second-favourite along with South African author Damon Galgut.
The favourite is Tom McCarthy who is 2/1 to win the prize with his novel C.
William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said: "There has been a considerable media buzz around all of the books on the short list, and literary punters have staked more money in total on Tom McCarthy to win than any of the other authors, so he is a worthy favourite."
Also on the shortlist is Australian novelist Peter Carey who could become the first author to win the prize three times.
However, the odds are against Carey carrying off the prize for a third time with bookmakers William Hill giving him just a 5/1 chance of winning.
The other shortlisted authors are Howard Jacobson and Andrea Levy.
Former poet laureate and judge Andrew Motion said: "It's been a great privilege and an exciting challenge for us to reduce our longlist of 13 to this shortlist of six outstandingly good novels.
"In doing so, we feel sure we've chosen books which demonstrate a rich variety of styles and themes - while in every case providing deep individual pleasures."
The winner will receive a cheque for £50,000 (€60,000) and worldwide recognition.
Last year's winning novel, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, has now sold more than half a million copies. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 (€3,000) and a designer bound edition of their shortlisted book.
The shortlist was whittled down from 138 titles.
The winner will be announced on Tuesday October 12.
Reaction
Jonathan Ruppin, web editor at Foyles Bookshop, said he was surprised at some of the big names left off the shortlist but that the competition was "wide open".
He said: "The omission of both David Mitchell and Christos Tsiolkas from the shortlist is a real shock. While both writers might rightly feel aggrieved at being overlooked, I imagine it took some wrangling amongst the judges to reduce one of the best long lists in years to six."
Ion Trewin, literary director of the Man Booker prizes, said it was the funniest shortlist in the history of the prize, which began in 1969.
He said: "There's more humour in this shortlist then I can certainly recall in the last decade, or in fact in the history of the prize.
"I'd love to be able to say it's a reaction to the economic crisis but much of the time the life of the novel starts very early on, before the economic crisis."
He added: "There seems to be a great deal of humour out of sometimes more unlikely backgrounds."
Novels with comedy in them were no longer considered unliterary, as they were in the earliest days of the prize, he said.
Chair of the judges Sir Andrew said many of the books on the shortlist had a comic aspect to them.
He said Carey and Jacobson's novels were funny, adding: "(Andrea Levy's) The Long Song has more surprisingly comic aspects to it and I would say there's a hilarity which isn't quite the same as comedy to the McCarthy novel (C) as well.
"Its energy, drive and explosive imagination makes you smile."
He said it "might be" a reaction to the times, written when the world was facing econmic crisis, but could be a "self-sufficient" pleasure rather than a reaction.
Deborah Bull, one of the prize judges, said: "It's partly a generational thing. Since Spitting Image, humour has been a valid way to make a point."
Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 shortlist
- Emma Donoghue: Room
- Peter Carey: Parrot And Olivier In America
- Damon Galgut: In A Strange Room
- Howard Jacobson: The Finkler Question
- Andrea Levy: The Long Song
- Tom McCarthy: C
Press Association
