Nigerian Chigozie Obioma shortlisted for Man Booker Prize


It is cheery news for the Nigerian literary community as Chigozie Obioma, together with five other writers, has been shortlisted for this year’s edition of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
The six authors and their books are Chigozie Obioma (The Fisher­men), Marlon James (Jamaica, A Brief History of Seven Killings), Tom McCarthy (Britain, Satin Island), Sunjeev Sahota (Britain, The Year of the Runaways), Anne Tyler (United States of America, A Spool of Blue Thread), Hanya Yanagihara (United States of America, A Little Life).
The six names were announced by Chair of judges, Michael Wood, at a press conference at the offices of sponsor Man Group. The judges remarked on the variety of writing styles, cultural heritage and literary backgrounds of the writers on the shortlist, which includes new au­thors alongside established names. Two authors come from the United Kingdom, two from the United States and one apiece from Jamaica and Nigeria.
This is the second year that the prize, first awarded in 1969, has been open to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in the UK. Previously, the prize was open only to authors from the UK & Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe.
The shortlisted authors will receive £2,500 each and a specially bound edition of their book while the winner will receive a further £50,000 and an international recognition. The winner will be an­nounced on Tuesday, October 13, in London’s Guildhall at a black-tie dinner that brings together the shortlisted authors and well-known figures from the literary world.
Chair of judges, Michael Wood said: “Only on rare occa­sions does celebration come so closely aligned with regret. The regret of what we left out was tempered by the enormous ex­citement we have in presenting the six books on the shortlist. “We re-read all 13 books on the long-list and in the process we redis­covered new pleasures in each. The writers on the shortlist presented an extraordinary range of approaches to fiction. They come from very different cultures and are themselves at very different stages of their careers.”
Tom McCarthy is the only shortlisted author to have been nomi­nated before, having been shortlisted for C in 2010. Marlon James is the first Jamaican-born author to be shortlisted for the prize. Chigozie Obioma is the second Nigerian to be nominated, after Ben Okri. Of the six authors, two are resident in Britain and four in the United States of America.



Check the The Sun newspaper for the full story.






































Check the The Sun newspaper for the full story.





































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