THE MAN BOOKER DOZEN

NO SURPRISES, REALLY

THERE WERE NO SURPRISES, REALLY. They are all on the longlist: A.S. Byatt, J.M. Coetzee, Sarah Hall, Hilary Mantel, Colm Tóibín, William Trevor and Sarah Waters. Here’s the official longlist of the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction which was announced on July 28, 2009:

1. The Children’s Book (Chatto & Windus, 2009) / A.S. Byatt
2. Summertime (Harvill Secker, 2009) / J.M. Coetzee
3. The Quickening Maze (Jonathan Cape, 2009) / Adam Foulds
4. How to Paint a Dead Man (Faber & Faber, 2009) / Sarah Hall
5. The Wilderness (Jonathan Cape, 2009) / Samantha Harvey
6. Me Cheeta (Fourth Estate, 2009) / James Lever

7. Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate, 2009) / Hilary Mantel
8. The Glass Room (Little, Brown, 2009) / Simon Mawer
9. Not Untrue & Not Unkind (Penguin Ireland, 2009) / Ed O’Loughlin
10. Heliopolis (Harvill Secker, 2009) / James Scudamore
11. Brooklyn (Viking, 2009) / Colm Tóibín
12. Love and Summer (Viking, 2009) / William Trevor
13. The Little Stranger (Virago, 2009) / Sarah Waters

Here’s what the chair of the judges, James Naughtie, had to say about the longlist: “The five Man Booker judges have settled on thirteen novels as the longlist for this year’s prize. We believe it to be one of the strongest lists in recent memory, with two former winners, four past-shortlisted writers, three first-time novelists and a span of styles and themes that make this an outstandingly rich fictional mix.

“We considered more than 130 novels (including the work of nine former winners) and found ourselves travelling in a fertile landscape. We kept discovering new talent as well as reacquainting ourselves with familiar writers, and emerged with a feeling that we were part of an exceptional year.

“Our fiction is in the hands of original and dedicated writers with fresh and appealing voices. This is an eclectic list, taking us from the court of Henry VIII to the Hollywood jungle, with stops along the way in a nineteenth-century Essex asylum, an African warzone and a futuristic Brazilian city among other places.

“These are books that readers will want to get their hands on.”

Chaired by James Naughtie, the line-up of judges in 2009 include Lucasta Miller, Michael Prodger, John Mullan and Sue Perkins.

The shortlist will be announced on September 8, 2009, and the announcement of the winner will be made on October 6, 2009.