Scot Ali Smith on Booker prize shortlist

Scot Ali Smith is shortlisted for her novel How To Be Both. Picture: PA

Smith is one of three Britons in the running for this year’s prize on a shortlist that includes US novelists for the first time since competition rules were changed.

After several years in which historical novels have proved popular, judges hailed the resurgence of fiction which tackles the “contemporary moment”.

Manchester-born Howard Jacobson, who won the Booker in 2010 for The Finkler Question, is shortlisted for his novel J, set in a Britain which has been “changed utterly” following “some kind of national tragedy”.

The shortlist also features The Lives Of Others, a “sweeping epic” set in India, by  Calcutta-born British author Neel Mukherjee. US writers Joshua Ferris and Karen Joy Fowler made the list of six. Ferris’ novel, To Rise Again At A Decent Hour, is the story of a dentist whose life is threatened when a Twitter account appears in his name.

Fellow US author Fowler’s book, We Are All completely Beside Ourselves, tackles families and “the nature of storytelling”.

And Australian writer Richard Flanagan’s novel The Narrow Road To The Deep North is set in a Japanese PoW camp.

Previous years have seen historical novels such as Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall become commercial and critical successes as well as prizewinners.

Judges said that while historical fiction had dominated previously, “fiction about the contemporary moment and recent past is making a resurgence”.

“We had plenty of historical novels but these [on the shortlist] are all very contemporary novels,” judge Sarah Churchwell said. “For some time, novels trying to engage with the contemporary world were failing to deal well with social media, the internet, all the things we all live with. But I remember picking up the Ferris and thinking, at last, this is the book I’ve been waiting for.”

The shortlisted novels tackle science, history and politics and the digital world. “It is as if literature has expanded its horizon. Art, war and the internet were key subjects,” the judges said.

A winner will be announced on 14 October.