FIVE years ago the judges of the Booker Prize singled out Andrew O’Hagan for his debut novel — ignoring previous winners Salman Rushdie and Roddy Doyle — although they eventually gave the award to J. M. Coetzee.
Yesterday the son of a cleaner and a carpenter who grew up in a Glasgow tenement was on the list again. This time, he was being tipped to win the £50,000 award, along with heavyweight authors such as the Australian bestselling novelist Peter Carey, who has won the Booker not once but twice.
They were among 19 authors picked to compete for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, arguably the world’s top premier literary prize. A place on its longlist puts writers on the literary map.
Their books were whittled down from around 112 entries. Some 95 novels were submitted by publishers and 17 were called in by the panel of judges — the poet and novelist Simon Armitage, the novelist Candia McWilliam, the critic Anthony Quinn and the actress Fiona Shaw, chaired by the bio- grapher and academic Hermione Lee.
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They struggled to make their choice, locking themselves away for more than six hours before they decided. The final two or three names had caused the delay, as the judges found themselves arguing the case for their favourite choices.
They picked O’Hagan for Be Near Me, a novel about love and loneliness. Professor Lee described it as an “extraordinarily touching and very imaginative portrayal of someone who . . . hasn’t really understood why they’re living the life they’re living”.
It was among several books on the longlist — including Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss and Robert Edric’s Gathering the Water — that reflected the particularly contemporary theme of displacement.
Carey was chosen for Theft: A Love Story, which explores notions of responsibility and redemption. With Coetzee, Carey is the only author to have won the Booker twice before.
In 2001, against stiff competition from Ian McEwan, he took the prize with his acclaimed True History of the Kelly Gang, the fictionalised tale of Ned Kelly, the Australian executed for his part in the killing of three policemen.
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Professor Lee said that in approaching each contender, the judges tried to pretend that they did not know anything about the writer: “With Carey’s book, we thought, ‘My God, if he was coming at us as an unknown, there is a vigour, an energy’,” she said.
The Booker — which was first awarded in 1969, with the Man Group as the new sponsor of the prize in 2002 — sets out to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. It is widely recognised as the publishing event of the year.
Lee, Goldsmiths’ Professor of English Literature at Oxford and author of the prize- winning biography of Virginia Woolf, said: “Judging the Man Booker Prize puts you through almost as many emotions as there are in the novels. We’ve tried to be careful and critical judges, as well as being passionately involved.
“It’s a list in which famous established novelists rub shoulders with little-known newcomers. We hope that people will make up their own shortlist.” She had also served on the 1981 Booker Prize judging panel when the prize was awarded to Midnight’s Children — by an author then little-known called Salman Rushdie.
This time, the list includes a debut novelist, Hisham Matar, whose In the Country of Men is a story of personal and political oppression set in Libya.
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The Times had described it as an “extraordinary first novel”, a universal cry of an innocent victim of institutional sadism.
Professor Lee said: “It’s told as if by a child under Gaddafi’s regime in Libya, and told retrospectively. It’s about what it’s like to be growing up in an environment which is deeply repressive. It’s almost Camus-like.”
Noting that celebrity names had dominated the 2005 list, Ion Trewin, the prize’s administrator, added: “This time, there are names that not everyone will have heard of. It will really repay the readers’ attention. They will discover who will be names in the future.”
Well-known names include Nadine Gordimer, who won in 1974, and Sarah Waters, who was shortlisted in 2002.
William Hill installed David Mitchell, who was shortlisted in 2004, as 5-1 favourite, for Black Swan Green: “Mitchell richly deserved to win with Cloud Atlas and his latest novel is another high-quality effort which will take a lot of beating.”
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Carey was second favourite at 6-1, followed by Sarah Waters 7-1, Barry Unsworth at 8-1 and Howard Jacobson at 10-1.
Winning the Booker is notorious for doing wonders for sales. Last year, the award went to The Sea by John Banville, whose sales are now almost a quarter of a million. The publisher also reported a dramatic increase in Banville’s backlist sales.
The shortlist will be announced on September 14 before the final ceremony on October 10.
THE LONGLIST
Peter Carey for Theft: A Love Story (Faber & Faber). He has written nine novels, including the Man Booker Prize-winning Oscar and Lucinda and The True History of the Kelly Gang
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Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton). The Indian-born author wrote Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Robert Edric for Gathering the Water (Doubleday). He was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2002 for Peacetime
Nadine Gordimer for Get a Life (Bloomsbury). The South African received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991
Kate Grenville for The Secret River (Canongate). She won the Orange Prize for The Idea of Perfection
M. J. Hyland for Carry Me Down (Canongate). The Londoner lives and works in Melbourne
Howard Jacobson for Kalooki Nights (Jonathan Cape). The novelist and broadcaster lectured at the University of Sydney for three years before returning to England where he taught English at Selwyn College
James Lasdun for Seven Lies (Jonathan Cape). The Londoner lives in New York and has published collections of poetry and short stories
Mary Lawson for The Other Side of the Bridge (Chatto & Windus). She was born and brought up in a farming community in Ontario and now lives in England with her husband
Jon McGregor for So Many Ways to Begin (Bloomsbury). The Bermudan-born author who lives in Nottingham was the only first-time novelist on the 2002 Man Booker longlist
Hisham Matar for In the Country of Men (Viking). He was born in New York and spent his childhood in Libya and Egypt. He has lived in London since 1986
Claire Messud for The Emperor’s Children (Picador). Her first novel, When the World was Steady, was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award
David Mitchell for Black Swan Green (Sceptre). He spent several years teaching in Japan and now lives in Ireland with his wife and two children
Naeem Murr for The Perfect Man (William Heinemann). His acclaimed first novel The Boy was published in 1998.
Andrew O’Hagan for Be Near Me (Faber & Faber). He was nominated in 2003 by Granta magazine as one of 20 Best of Young British Novelists
James Robertson for The Testament of Gideon Mack (Hamish Hamilton). His first novel, The Fanatic, was published in 2000.
Edward St Aubyn for Mother’s Milk (Picador). His previous novels include A Clue to the Exit
Barry Unsworth for The Ruby in her Navel (Hamish Hamilton). His Sacred Hunger won the Booker in 1992
Sarah Waters for The Night Watch (Virago). Her first novel, Tipping the Velvet, won the 1999 Betty Trask Award
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