Countdown to Man Booker Prize begins

London, Oct 16 (IANS) The much-awaited 50,000 pounds Man Booker Prize 2017, the shortlist of which features novels by three men and three women exploring unusual and challenging themes along with a neck-and-neck fight between American heavyweights and British novelists, will be announced on Tuesday.

Among the novels that are in the race for the coveted literary prize are Paul Auster's "4321," "History of Wolves" by Emily Fridlund, "Exit West" by Pakistani-UK writer Mohsin Hamid, "Elmet" by Fiona Mozley, "Lincoln in the Bardo" by George Saunders and Ali Smith's "Autumn".

This shortlist of the Man Booker Prize (Fiction) 2017 was whittled down from the longlist of 13 books in mid-September. The 1997 Booker winning author Arundhati Roy's "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness," along with Zadie Smith's "Swing Time" and Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad" were dropped from the longlist of 13 novels.

"With six unique and intrepid books that collectively push against the borders of convention, this year's shortlist both acknowledges established authors and introduces new voices to the literary stage.

"Playful, sincere, unsettling, fierce: here is a group of novels grown from tradition but also radical and contemporary. The emotional, cultural, political and intellectual range of these books is remarkable, and the ways in which they challenge our thinking is a testament to the power of literature," Baroness Lola Young, chair of the judging committee, commented about the shortlist.

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