Man Booker Prize unveils 2015 longlist

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction this morning released its longlist of 13 titles that will compete for the world’s most prestigious award for fiction written in English.

In only their second year of eligibility, five American authors are on the 13-title list, making the U.S. the most-represented country on the list.

The longlist this year includes three debut novelists — Bill Clegg, Chigozie Obioma and Anna Smaill — and four independent presses. Marlon James, who currently lives in Minneapolis, is the first Jamaican writer to be nominated for the Man Booker. His work “A Brief History of Seven Killings” tells the story of the attempted assassination of Bob Marley.

Only one previous winner, Anne Enright, is longlisted. Two formerly shortlisted writers, Tom McCarthy and Andrew O’Hagan, are also longlisted. Only three people – Hillary Mantel, JM Coetzee and Peter Carey – have won the prize twice.

“The range of different performances and forms of these novels is amazing,” the 2015 chair of judges, Michael Wood said in a statement.“All of them do something exciting with the language they have chosen to use.”

Founded in 1969, the Man Booker was only open to residents of the British commonwealth for its first 45 years. In 2013, the prize was broadened to include any work written in English and published in the U.K.

The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 15 and the winner, who will receive £50,000, will be named on Oct. 13. See the full longlist below.

2015 Man Booker Prize longlist

Bill Clegg (U.S.) – “Did You Ever Have a Family” (Jonathan Cape)
Anne Enright (Ireland) – “The Green Road” (Jonathan Cape)
Marlon James (Jamaica) – “A Brief History of Seven Killings” (Oneworld Publications)
Laila Lalami (U.S.) – “The Moor’s Account” (Periscope, Garnet Publishing)
Tom McCarthy (U.K.) – “Satin Island” (Jonathan Cape)
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) – “The Fishermen” (ONE, Pushkin Press)
Andrew O’Hagan (U.K.) – “The Illuminations” (Faber & Faber)
Marilynne Robinson (U.S.) – “Lila” (Virago)
Anuradha Roy (India) – “Sleeping on Jupiter” (MacLehose Press, Quercus)
Sunjeev Sahota (U.K.) – “The Year of the Runaways” (Picador)
Anna Smaill (New Zealand) – “The Chimes” (Sceptre)
Anne Tyler (U.S.) – “A Spool of Blue Thread” (Chatto & Windus)
Hanya Yanagihara (U.S.) – “A Little Life” (Picador)

For more Art Beat coverage of the Man Booker prize, you can see Jeffrey Brown’s conversation with Eleanor Catton in 2013, after she won the prize for “The Luminaries.”