Will Self receives maiden nomination as Man Booker Prize shortlist unveiled

Published on 11/09/2012 14:38

PAST winner Hilary Mantel has again been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, alongside first-time nominee Will Self.

• Hilary Mantel may become first British writer to win Man Booker Prize twice

• Will Self receives first ever nomination for Umbrella

Mantel, who won the literary award in 2009 with Wolf Hall, is the only novelist to have featured on the shortlist of six before and is included for her book Bring Up The Bodies.

The nominees were announced by chair of the judging panel Sir Peter Stothard, editor of The Times Literary Supplement.

The winner will be announced on October 16 at a ceremony in London’s Guildhall.

If Mantel scoops the prize, she will become the first British writer to win it twice.

Sir Peter added: “The judges agree that we have been very fortunate judges. This has been an exhilarating year for fiction. The strongest I would say for more than a decade.

“There are first novels from India and the East Midlands, small publishers from Newcastle, north Norfolk and High Wycombe alongside novels by Hilary Mantel and Will Self, two of the great established radicals of contemporary literature.”

Two of the books on the list are debut novels - Indian writer Thayil’s Narcopolis and Moore’s The Lighthouse.

The winner will receive a £50,000 prize, in addition to the £2,500 awarded to all shortlisted writers and, importantly, a huge boost in sales for their work. Last year’s winner, The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes, has sold more than 300,000 print editions in the UK.

Writers who were on the longlist of 12 but failed to make the final cut are Michael Frayn, Nicola Barker and Andre Brink.

Sir Peter said of the list: “After re-reading an extraordinary longlist of 12, it was the pure power of prose that settled most debates.

“We loved the shock of language shown in so many different ways and were exhilarated by the vigour and vividly defined values in the six books that we chose - and in the visible confidence of the novel’s place in forming our words and ideas.”

Also among the figures on the judging panel are Downton Abbey actor Dan Stevens and historian and broadcaster Amanda Foreman.

Bookmaker William Hill immediately installed Self as favourite to win the prize after finally being included by the Booker judges following a celebrated career.

He is being given odds of 7/4 to take the prize, with Mantel, whose book is a continuation of her life of Thomas Cromwell, second favourite at 2/1.

If she wins again, Mantel will join an exclusive club, featuring South African-born JM Coetzee and Australian-born Peter Carey, who have won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction twice.

The Garden Of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng, who lives in Cape Town, is set in Malaysia during the Japanese occupation.

The Lighthouse, about a middle-aged, recently-separated man who heads to Germany, is by Manchester-born Alison Moore.

Self’s book Umbrella is set across an entire century and is described by judges as “both moving and draining”.

Man Booker Prize shortlist

Tan Twan Eng - The Garden Of Evening Mists

Deborah Levy - Swimming Home

Hilary Mantel - Bring Up The Bodies

Alison Moore - The Lighthouse

Will Self - Umbrella

Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis