BYATT, COETZEE E WATERS ASPIRE TO BOOKER PRIZE

The 2009 longlist of Booker Prize announced:

Author                          Title                                          Publisher

Byatt, AS                      The Children's Book                 Random House - Chatto and Windus

Coetzee, J M               Summertime                            Random House - Harvill Secker

Foulds, Adam              The Quickening Maze              Random House - Jonathan Cape

Hall, Sarah                   How to paint a dead man      Faber and Faber

Harvey, Samantha      The Wilderness                        Random House - Jonathan Cape

Lever, James                Me Cheeta                              HarperCollins - Fourth Estate

Mantel, Hilary              Wolf Hall                                  HarperCollins - Fourth Estate

Mawer, Simon             The Glass Room                       Little, Brown

O'Loughlin, Ed             Not Untrue & Not Unkind        Penguin - Ireland

Scudamore, James      Heliopolis                                 Random House - Harvill Secker

Toibin, Colm                Brooklyn                                  Penguin - Viking

Trevor, William             Love and Summer                   Penguin - Viking

Waters, Sarah              The Little Stranger                    Little, Brown - Virago

The chair of judges, James Naughtie, said today:

'The five Man Booker judges have settled on thirteen novels as the longlist for this year's prize.  We believe it to be one of the strongest lists in recent memory, with two former winners, four past-shortlisted writers, three first-time novelists and a span of styles and themes that make this an outstandingly rich fictional mix.'

Chaired by broadcaster and author James Naughtie, the 2009 judges are Lucasta Miller, biographer and critic; Michael Prodger, Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph; Professor John Mullan, academic, journalist and broadcaster and Sue Perkins, comedian, journalist and broadcaster.

A total of 132 books, 11 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the ‘Man Booker Dozen' longlist of 13 books.