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Man Booker 2015 shortlist revealed: Anne Tyler, Marlon James and Chigozie Obioma among final six nominees

Two British authors are among the shortlist of six

Jess Denham
Tuesday 15 September 2015 05:54 EDT
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The Man Booker longlist was announced in August
The Man Booker longlist was announced in August (Micha Theiner)

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Marlon James, Tom McCarthy, Chigozie Obioma, Sunjeev Sahota, Anne Tyler and Hanya Yanagihara are the six authors shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015.

British authors McCarthy and Sahota are shortlisted for Satin Island and The Year of the Runaways respectively. McCarthy's book focuses on elite London consultancy employee U., while Sahota's novel is about 13 Indian men looking to start a new life in Sheffield.

Jamaican writer James is nominated for his third book, A Brief History of Seven Killings, which follows the story of seven gunmen who attempted to assassinate reggae singer Bob Marley in the late Seventies. HBO is planning a TV series based on the novel.

US author Tyler is shortlisted for her bestselling A Spool of Blue Thread about the Whitshank family across generations, and Nigeria's Obioma earns a nod for his debut novel The Fishermen, about four young brothers who meet a madman in a small Nigerian town.

Yanagihara, another US writer, is nominated with this year's longest book A Little Life, which explores the friendship of four graduates who move to New York. It is 736 pages long.

Each shortlisted author receives a specially-bound edition of their book along with £2,500. The final list was selected from a longlist of 13 novels, revealed in July.

This is the second year that writers of any nationality have been eligible for the prize, first awarded in 1969. The book must have been originally written in English and published in the UK.

The winner of the annual £50,000 prize will be announced on 13 October during a ceremony at London's Guildhall.

Last year's Man Booker was won by Australian author Richard Flanagan for World War Two-set novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, about his father's experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

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