Man Booker Prize 2011 longlist announced

The longlist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction - the ‘Man Booker Dozen' has been announced.

The titles were chosen by a panel of five judges chaired by author and former Director-General of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington.

'We are delighted by the quality and breadth of our longlist, which emerged from an impassioned discussion. The list ranges from the Wild West to multi-ethnic London via post-Cold War Moscow and Bucharest, and includes four first novels.'

A total of 138 books, seven of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the ‘Man Booker Dozen' longlist. They are:

• Julian Barnes: The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
• Sebastian Barry: On Canaan's Side (Faber)
• Carol Birch: Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
• Patrick deWitt: The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
• Esi Edugyan: Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
• Yvvette Edwards: A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
• Alan Hollinghurst: The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
• Stephen Kelman: Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
• Patrick McGuinness: The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
• A.D. Miller: Snowdrops (Atlantic)
• Alison Pick: Far to Go (Headline Review)
• Jane Rogers: The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
• D.J. Taylor: Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

The four first time novelists on the list are: Stephen Kelman, A.D. Miller, Yvvette Edwards and Patrick McGuinness. Canadian author Alison Pick, like McGuinness, is a published poet and is joined by fellow Canadians, Patrick deWitt and Esi Edugyan, on the longlist.

The list includes one former winner, Alan Hollinghurst, who won the prize in 2004 for The Line of Beauty. He was also shortlisted in 1994 for The Folding Star.

Two previously shortlisted authors also make the list: Irish writer Sebastian Barry (The Secret Scripture, 2008 and A Long Long Way, 2005) and Julian Barnes (Arthur and George, 2005, England, England, 1998 and Flaubert's Parrot, 1984). Carol Birch was longlisted in 2003 for Turn Again Home.

The shortlist of six authors will be announced on Tuesday 6 September at a press conference at Man Group's London headquarters. The winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced on Tuesday 18 October at a dinner at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast on the BBC.

Prizes
|The winner will receive £50,000 and each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, will receive £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their book.

Judges
The judges for the 2011 Prize are writer and journalist, Matthew d'Ancona; author, Susan Hill; author and politician, Chris Mullin and Head of Books at the Daily Telegraph, Gaby Wood. Dame Stella Rimington is the Chair.

More information
For further information about the prize please visit www.themanbookerprize.com or follow the prize on Twitter at twitter.com/ManBooker