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No Asian in Man Booker Prize race

LONDON: For the first time in many years, no Asian writer is in contention for the Man Booker Prize this time.

A longlist of 13 books announced here on Tuesday for the £50,000 prize is conspicuous for its absence of any writer from the subcontinent or the wider Asian region — a refreshing sign, some believe, that judges no longer feel obliged to be politically correct by having to fish for potential winners from the Third World. One judge was reported as saying that it was a deliberate decision not to “tick categories.”

The contenders for this year’s prize, to be given in October, include three first-time novelists — James Lever, Samantha Harvey, and Ed O’Loughlin — and two former winners — A.S. Byatt and J.M. Coetzee. Many will be dropped when a shortlist of six is announced in September.

Broadcaster James Naughtie, who chaired the five-member jury, described it as the “strongest list” in years, representing “an outstandingly rich fictional mix.”

Hailing 2009 as an “exceptional year” for English-language fiction, Mr. Naughtie said: “We considered more than 130 novels (including the work of nine former winners) and found ourselves travelling in a fertile landscape. We kept discovering new talent as well as reacquainting ourselves with familiar writers, and emerged with a feeling that we were part of an exceptional year…These are books that readers will want to get their hands on.”

There was a huge buzz around James Lever’s Me Cheeta, The Autobiography, which The Times described as a “satirical novel disguised as an authentic autobiography” of Tarzan the chimp.

Byatt has been selected for The Children’s Book, a portrait of childhood at the end of Victorian era, and J.M. Coetzee for Summertime, a fictional memoir.

Others include Adam Foulds (The Quickening Maze), Sarah Hill (How to Paint a Dead Man), Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall), Simon Mawer (The Glass Room), Ed O’Loughlin (Not True and Not Unkind), Samantha Harvey (The Wilderness), James Scudamore (Heliopolis), Colm Toibin (Brooklyn), William Trevor (Love and Summer) and Sarah Waters (The Little Stranger).

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