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Two Indian writers on Booker longlist

LONDON: Two Indian novelists, Indra Sinha and Nikita Lalwani, are in the race for this year’s Man Booker Prize whose previous Indian winners have been Kiran Desai and Arundhati Roy.

They would be up against two other fellow Asian contenders: Pakistani-born Mohsin Hamid; and Malaysia’s Tan Twan Tang.

The four have been included in a longlist of 13, mostly new writers, unveiled on Wednesday.

Eventually, only six will make it to the shortlist to be announced next month and the winner of the £ 50,000 award would be named at a black-tie event in London on October 16.

It is the first time that so many Asians have been longlisted for what is regarded as the English-speaking world’s most prestigious literary award, won by Ms. Desai last year for her novel The Inheritance of Loss.

The list is also notable for the absence of big names and the predominance of first-time novelists. There are four first novels including Nikita Lalwani’s Gifted , about a teenage prodigy who rebels against her immigrant paren ts’ pressure to excel in their adopted country.

Critics highlighted the omission of several heavyweights such as Doris Lessing and previous winners like J.M. Coetzee, Graham Swift and Michael Ondatjee.

The only big name on the list is Ian McEwan for his novella On Chesil Beach about the wedding night anxieties of a couple.

And despite its ‘thinness’ it was promptly billed as the favourite to win the prize. Mr. McEwan won a Booker in 1998 for Amsterdam.

Judges defended the list describing it as refreshingly “diverse.” “All the books chosen are well-crafted and will appeal to a wide readership,” said the chair of judges Sir Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics.

Some critics felt the list was too “thin” reflecting a bad year for English-language fiction.

Mr. Sinha’s Animal’s People is loosely based on the Bhopal gas tragedy while his Pakistani rival Mr. Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist recounts the devastating effect of 9/11 on a well-heeled Pakistani living in New York. Mr. Hamid’s debut novel Moth Smoke was widely acclaimed. The Malaysian-born Mr. Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain tells the story of a lonely teenager.

Other contenders include A.N. Wilson, Nicola Barker, Edward Dock, Peter Ho Davies, Anne Enright, Lloyd Jones, Catherine O’Flynn and Michael Redhill.

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