Man Booker Prize Shortlist

Actually I am late in posting this as the Booker Prize winner will be announced  in two weeks time on October 15, 2013. It hovered on the peripheral of my mind but I never came around to posting it. As already known Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo made the list with her book We Need New Names. Here are the six-shortlisted books:

• Wee Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
• The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
• The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
• The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin
• Harvest by Jim Crace

According to the Booker Prize site: The six books on the list could not be more diverse. There are entries from novelists from New Zealand, England, Canada and Zimbabwe - each with its own highly distinctive taste. They range in size from the 832 pages of Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries to the 104 page The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin. The times represented stretch from the biblical Middle East (Toibin) to contemporary Zimbabwe (NoViolet Bulawayo) by way of 19th-Century modern Tokyo (Ruth Ozeki). The oldest author on the list, Jim Crace, is 67, the youngest (indeed the youngest ever shortlistee), Eleanor Catton, is 28. Colm Toibin has written more than 15 books, The Luminaries is only Catton's second and We Need New Names is Bulawayo's first.