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| Man Booker shortlist is announced | Man Booker shortlist is announced |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| This year's shortlist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been announced. | This year's shortlist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been announced. |
| The six nominees include JM Coetzee and AS Byatt, both of whom are past winners of the literary award. | |
| South African Coetzee is hoping to become the first three-time winner with his fictional memoir, Summertime. Byatt is nominated for The Children's Book. | |
| The winning writer will be handed the £50,000 prize during a ceremony at London's Guildhall on 6 October. | The winning writer will be handed the £50,000 prize during a ceremony at London's Guildhall on 6 October. |
| Coetzee previously won in 1999 with Disgrace and 1983 with Life & Times of Michael K, while AS Byatt is in the running for her second win after her novel Possession won the prize in 1990. | |
| However, Mantel is the bookmaker's favourite to win the award for her book Wolf Hall, an historical novel about Henry VIII's adviser Thomas Cromwell. | |
| 'Difficult choice' | |
| The youngest author on the shortlist is Adam Foulds at 34, whose The Quickening Maze, an account of the madness of the poet John Clare. | |
| Simon Mawer is shortlisted for his eighth novel, The Glass Room, about an architect with an ambitious plan to build a house of glass. | |
| "We're thrilled to be able to announce such a strong shortlist, so enticing that it will certainly give us a headache when we come to select the winner," said chair of the judges James Naughtie. | |
| "The choice will be a difficult one. There is thundering narrative, great inventiveness, poetry and sharp human insight in abundance." | "The choice will be a difficult one. There is thundering narrative, great inventiveness, poetry and sharp human insight in abundance." |
| SHORTLIST IN FULL AS Byatt - The Children's Book JM Coetzee - Summertime Adam Foulds - The Quickening Maze Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall Simon Mawer - The Glass Room Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger | |
| Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their own book. | |
| For the second year running, extracts of each shortlisted novel will be available to download onto mobiles. | For the second year running, extracts of each shortlisted novel will be available to download onto mobiles. |
| Last year's award was won by Aravind Adiga for The White Tiger, which has sold more than half a million copies and been translated into 39 languages. | |
| Naughtie is joined on the judging panel by biographer and critic Lucasta Miller; Michael Prodger, Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph; Professor John Mullan, academic, journalist and broadcaster and Sue Perkins, comedian, journalist and broadcaster. |