Surprise as Ali and Heller are excluded from Orange shortlist

The Orange prize for fiction delivered its usual surprises yesterday by omitting the Man Booker contenders Monica Ali and Zoe Heller and the Nobel prize laureate Toni Morrison from its shortlist.

The Orange prize for fiction delivered its usual surprises yesterday by omitting the Man Booker contenders Monica Ali and Zoe Heller and the Nobel prize laureate Toni Morrison from its shortlist.

Instead, the £30,000 prize for women's writing will be contested by six writers including one first-time novelist, an author whose last work was published 23 years ago and two veterans.

Margaret Atwood, the Canadian author, is one of the veteran authors to have survived the cull from the 20-strong long-list with her 11th novel, Oryx and Crake, which was also a contender for the Booker.

The other is Rose Tremain, who is the only British writer on the list, with her 11th novel, The Colour, a historical novel set in the 19th century New Zealand gold rush.

Shirley Hazzard, the Australian-born writer, makes it through to the final with The Great Fire, her fourth novel and her first since 1981. It is a love story set in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer, is the sole debut novelist to remain on a list that originally included seven first-time writers. Purple Hibiscus is a coming-of-age story set in Nigeria during the military regime of the mid-1990s.

The other books selected by the jury chaired by the broadcaster Sandi Toksvig are Ice Road, a story of Stalin's purges and the blockade of Leningrad, by the South African-born author Gillian Slovo, and Small Island, about life in post-war multicultural Britain by Andrea Levy.

The list had included Monica Ali's bestseller Brick Lane, Zoe Heller's novel about a teacher-pupil relationship Notes on a Scandal, and Toni Morrison's latest work, Love.

Toksvig said: "This year's shortlist ranges from the fledgling author to the famous; the factually based story to the fantastical; from the minutiae of the domestic to the broad sweep of the political. Not bad for six books."

The judging panel includes the QC Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, the author Minette Walters, and the head of libraries for Glasgow City Council, Karen Cunningham.

Martin Higgs, the literary editor of Waterstone's, said he was delighted that Small Island, one of his favourite books of the year, had been chosen. "It is the story of a Jamaican airman who fought for the British in the Second World War and suddenly finds himself not welcome in Britain as soon as the war is over," he said.

"It's all about the early days of multicultural society in the mid and late 1940s and how people who fought together lived together when race suddenly becomes an issue." But, he added, despite its serious issues it was also very funny.

"I would love it to win and I think it must stand a realistic chance. Oryx and Crake and the Rose Tremain were published this time last year and are coming out in paperback so there's not that excitement about them," he said. "The track record of the Orange prize is to go for something slightly quirkier."

Niamh Byrne, the head of sponsorship for Orange, said the prize continued to be "one of the most exciting, stimulating and challenging". She continued: "It has also established itself as a truly international prize and the wide mix of nationalities on this year's list is an excellent reflection of this."

The winner will be announced and presented with a cheque for £30,000 at a ceremony in London on 8 June. There will be readings from the shortlisted works at the Hay literary festival on 6 June and the British Library the day after.

Previous winners include Larry's Party by Carol Shields, Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels and A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore, the winner in the prize's inaugural year, 1996.

THE CONTENDERS

Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (Bloomsbury)

Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire (Virago)

Andrea Levy, Small Island (Review)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus (Fourth Estate)

Gillian Slovo, Ice Road (Little, Brown)

Rose Tremain, The Colour (Chatto and Windus)