MAN BOOKER

The booker Prize longlist this year (announced on 14th August) consists of the following works.

Carey, Peter Theft: A Love Story (Faber & Faber)
Desai, Kiran The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton)
Edric, Robert Gathering the Water (Doubleday)
Gordimer, Nadine Get a Life (Bloomsbury)
Grenville, Kate The Secret River (Canongate)
Hyland, M.J. Carry Me Down (Canongate)
Jacobson, Howard Kalooki Nights (Jonathan Cape)
Lasdun, James Seven Lies (Jonathan Cape)
Lawson, Mary The Other Side of the Bridge (Chatto & Windus)
McGregor, Jon So Many Ways to Begin (Bloomsbury)
Matar, Hisham In the Country of Men (Viking)
Messud, Claire The Emperor’s Children (Picador)
Mitchell, David Black Swan Green (Sceptre)
Murr, Naeem The Perfect Man (William Heinemann)
O’Hagan, Andrew Be Near Me (Faber & Faber)
Robertson, James The Testament of Gideon Mack (Hamish Hamilton)
St Aubyn, Edward Mother’s Milk (Picador)
Unsworth, Barry The Ruby in her Navel (Hamish Hamilton)
Waters, Sarah The Night Watch (Virago)

This list was chosed from 112 entries by a judging panel comprising of novelists Simon Armitage and Candia McWilliam, critic Anthony Quinn and actress Fiona Shaw (Chair is Hermione Lee). The shortlist wil be announced on 14th September and the winner will be announced on 10th October.

Last year, Azar Nafisi (of Reading Lolita in Tehran fame) was on the judges' panel. Nafisi is the kind of teacher who would explain "kitsch" to students in her Teheran University classroom with a bouquet of lilies in one hand and plastic flowers in the other. No wonder she was so popular.

Though I haven't finished reading last year Booker winner, John Banville's The Sea (heck haven't started it yet!!!) some of the books that made it to the winner list in the past few years have been truly great works. For instance Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things, Coetzee's Disgrace and Yann Martel's Life of Pi.