The shortlist for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, the most prestigious literary award in Britain, was announced on Tuesday morning.
The six finalists are:
“We Need New Names,†by Noviolet Bulawayo (Little, Brown/Chatto)
“The Luminaries,†by Eleanor Catton (Little, Brown/Granta)
“Harvest,†by Jim Crace (Nan A. Talese/Picador)
“The Lowland,†by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf/Bloomsbury)
“A Tale for the Time Being,†by Ruth Ozeki (Viking/Canongate)
“The Testament of Mary,†by Colm Toibin (Scribner/Penguin)
The winner of the prize â€" which is open to writers from Britain, Ireland or one of the Commonwealth nations â€" will be named at a ceremony in London on Oct. 15. The winner will be awarded a cash prize of £50,000, or about $80,000.
Robert Macfarlane, the chairman of the judging panel, said at a news conference on Tuesday, “We looked for books that sought to extend the power and possibility of the form. This is in keeping with the history of the novel. We wanted novel novels.â€
