The Telegraph asked “where is JM Coetzee’s The Schooldays of Jesus?”, while books editor for the Guardian Claire Armistead also wrote yesterday (14th September), “If prizes are about boosting the book trade then the Booker prize shortlist is not a good one: determinedly unstarry in the first place, it has jettisoned even those namecheck authors who had made the longlist”.
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Most of the writers are relatively unknown, but judging panel chairwoman Amanda Foreman said Tuesday they are “the household names of the future”.
Since its inception in 1969, the Booker Prize could only be given to British, Irish, Zimbabwean and Commonwealth writers, but in 2013 it was broadened to accept all novels published in Britain and originally written in English.
His Bloody Project was put into print by independent publisher Contraband, a tiny Glasgow-based publisher run by just two people. Last year’s victor was Jamaican Marlon James for his novel, “A Brief History of Seven Killings”.
The Vancouver-born Thien joins Montreal native David Szalay along with two American and two British authors on the short list for the award, which will be handed out at a gala in London on October 25.
“As a writer, all you want is for readers to have the opportunity to discover your work, and a Man Booker nomination propels your book to a wider audience than I could ever have dreamed of”.
The victor of the Booker Prize will receive a £50,000 reward. It is a scorching novel about one woman’s experience in a patriarchal society; it has a brutal eloquence not in evidence in five of this year’s Man Booker contenders.
‘The Man Booker Prize subjects novels to a level of scrutiny that few books can survive.
She was joined by David Szalay, writer of All That Man Is.
Judge and literary critic Jon Day told Fairfax Media the shortlist rewarded authors willing to take a risk with their writing but said this did not mean this favoured new writers over established authors. The victor will receive a further £50,000 and can expect global recognition. The Booker Prize Foundation has a longstanding partnership with RNIB to provide Man Booker Prize books to the tens of thousands of blind and partially sighted members of the RNIB Library.
Previous winners include Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel, Iris Murdoch and Ian McEwan.
British author Levy was previously shortlisted for Swimming Home in 2012.
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“Having the opportunity to evangelise on behalf of six books to the world at large is a wonderful privilege”, he said.
