That time of year again. The 2014 Man Booker Prize long list has been published. The competition is open to American novelists for the first time but a deluge of transatlantic entries feared by some has not materialised. Of 154 entries only 40 are by US writers.
In the long list only four of the thirteen writers are American. Britain has six authors including the Indian-born Neel Mukherjee, with one novelist each from Ireland and Australia with Irish-American Joseph O'Neill being claimed by both countries.
Paul Kingsworth is the debut novelist up against some previous winners (Howard Jacobson winner in 2010) and shortlisted writers (Ali Smith 2001 and 2005 and David Mitchell 2001 and 2004).
There is a wide range of genres represented from Kingsworth's account of life in England post 1066 told in an invented language some way between Middle and Modern English, Howard Jacobson's futuristic love story J and David Mitchell's metaphysical thriller The Bone Clocks.
This reminds me my own current novel Death Runs After is no further forward. Must get on.
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