The Hindu : International : Naipaul, Rushdie not on Man Booker International shortlist

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 20, 2005

International

International

Naipaul, Rushdie not on Man Booker International shortlist

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, FEB. 19. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera, Gunter Grass, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and John Updike are in, but the Nobel laureate, V.S. Naipaul and the twice Booker Prize winner, Salman Rushdie, have failed to make it to the shortlist of the first Man Booker International Prize announced on Friday.

Unlike the more famous Booker prize given annually to the best work of fiction by a British or Commonwealth writer published that year, the £60,000 international prize will be given once in two years in recognition of the life-time achievement of a living author, irrespective of nationality.

The only condition is that the contending authors must have published fiction either originally in English or their work must be "generally" available in translation in English.

The winner from the 18-strong shortlist, chosen by a panel of writers chaired by British critic and academic, John Carey, will be announced in June.

The list, featuring writers from 13 countries, boasts of five Nobel Prize winners — Marquez, Grass, Bellow, Naguib Mahfouz and Kenzaburo Oe. Other familiar names include Margaret Atwood, Ismail Kadare, Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, Tomas Eloy Martinez, Cynthia Ozick and Muriel Spark.

Prof. Carey said the list represented writers who "combine uniqueness and universality and remind us irresistibly of the joy of reading."

The omission of Mr. Naipaul and Mr. Rushdie surprised critics and Prof. Carey admitted that "we're very aware of the giants who are missing." But he added: "We simply followed our own tastes."

The Chairman of the Man Booker group, Harvey McGrath, said the decision to launch an international literary prize was prompted by a "common desire to more widely encourage interest in contemporary fiction.

"We are confident that the Man Book International will swiftly establish itself as an important part of the global literary landscape," he said.

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