Five American writers, including Marilynne Robinson, Anne Tyler and the literary agent turned debut novelist Bill Clegg, have been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards.
The longlist, which was announced Wednesday, consists of 13 writers, including the Nigerian novelist Chigozie Obioma for his debut, “The Fishermen”; the Jamaican writer Marlon James, whose novel, “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley; the British novelist Tom McCarthy, for his hallucinatory “Satin Island,” about an anthropologist writing an ambitious ethnographic report, and Anuradha Roy, an Indian novelist whose book “Sleeping on Jupiter” centers on a woman who was taken from her family as a young girl and put in an ashram with a charismatic guru.
This is the second year that the prize has included English-language writers of all nationalities. Until last year, the Booker Prize, which was first given in 1969, was only open to novelists from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth nations. The award, which comes with a prize of $78,000, is one of the most coveted literary honors and often provides a huge sales boost for the winner.
The five American nominees were the most from one country, followed by three from Britain. Mr. Clegg’s debut novel, “Did You Ever Have a Family,” which comes out in September, is about a woman struggling to recover after a freak gas explosion that kills her family. He, Ms. Robinson and Ms. Tyler were joined on the longlist by the American writers Laila Lalami and Hanya Yanagihara. Ireland’s Anne Enright, who won the Booker in 2007 for “The Gathering,” was nominated for her novel “The Green Road.”
Last year’s Man Booker Prize went to the Australian writer Richard Flanagan, for his historical novel “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” about an Australian doctor in a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway.
The judges considered 156 books for this year’s prize. The shortlist of six finalists will be announced on Sept. 15, and the winner will be announced on Oct. 13.