The judges who will decide the winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize have announced their shortlist. For the first time, all novels written in the English language were eligible, so four American authors made the list.
The prize organizers announced last fall that all novels written in the past year will be eligible for the prestigious prize, which awards the winner £50,000. Previously, only authors from the U.K., Ireland and the Commonwealth of former British colonies were eligible.
However, with American authors now in the mix, that has pushed out Commonwealth authors. The list includes no author from Canada and only one from any former colony. Australia’s Richard Flanagan is up for the prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep.
There are four American novels on the list - Joshua Ferris’ To Rise Again at a Decent Hour; Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves; Siri Hustvedt’s The Blazing World; and Richard Powers’ Orfeo.
Irish-American author Joseph O’Neill’s The Dog is on the list, along with Irish author Niall Williams’ History of the Rain.
The remaining novels were penned by British authors. They are: J by Howard Jacobson; Paul Kingsworth’s The Wake; The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell; Neel Mukherjee’s The Lives of OtherS and Us by David Nicholls.
According to The BBC, the only previous winner on the list is Jacobson. This is the third nomination for Mitchell, who is best known for Cloud Atlas. There are also only three women on the longlist.
The shortlist will be out on Sept. 9 and the winner is announced on Oct. 14.