Byatt, Coetzee, Foulds, Mantel, Mawer & Waters shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
1. The Children’s Book (Chatto & Windus/Random House, 2009) / A.S. Byatt2. Summertime (Harvill Secker/Random House, 2009) / J.M. Coetzee
3. The Quickening Maze (Jonathan Cape/Random House, 2009) / Adam Foulds
4. Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate/HarperCollins, 2009) / Hilary Mantel
5. The Glass Room (Little, Brown, 2009) / Simon Mawer
6. The Little Stranger (Virago/Little, Brown, 2009) / Sarah Waters
The winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced on October 6, 2009
posted by Eric Forbes at 5:20 AM
7 Comments:
Quite a strong shortlist. My money's on Hilary Mantel and Simon Mawer.
God forbid dull boring JM Coetzee gets another Booker...
It may be strong, but I think it's a rather dull shortlist!
What happened to Colm Toibin and William Trevor?
Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger is good, but it is not as good as her last book, The Night Watch. A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book is rather heavygoing, though you can't fault its narrative drive and compelling characters. I am not sure whether J.M. Coetzee's Summertime is good enough to win the author his third Booker Prize, though I have heard that it is better than Diary of a Bad Year. I think Simon Mawer is good but The Glass Room lacks promotion and recognition. Hilary Mantel is very good. I am not too sure about Adam Foulds's The Quickening Maze, but I think he has the makings of a great writer.
Thanks for your wishes, Eric!
I thought Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn, Sarah Hall's How to Paint a Dead Man and William Trevor's Love and Summer deserved a place on the shortlist.
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