Man Booker longlist 2015: Only three British authors nominated and Harper Lee snubbed

American authors dominate this year's coveted longlist prize for a second year.
British Man Booker longlist nominees: Andrew O'Hagan, Sunjeev Sahota, Tom McCarthy
Miranda Bryant29 July 2015

Just three British authors made it onto this year’s Man Booker Prize longlist as American writers dominated for a second year.

Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island, The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan and Sunjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways were the only British authors on the list of 13 books to be longlisted for the prestigious literary prize. This compares to last year when six British authors made the list.

Five American titles - Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg, The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami, Lila by Marilynne Robinson, A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler and Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life - made this year’s long-list as US authors showed their dominance for a second consecutive year.

It is only the second time 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 it was restricted to authors from the UK and Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe.

Irish author Anne Enright is the only former winner on the longlist with her novel The Green Road. While McCarthy and O’Hagan have both previously been shortlisted. Robinson has been twice shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

Judges said they were struck by the international range of the novels, with the other longlisted writers including Marlon James, the first Jamaican-born author to be nominated for the prize, Nigerian Chigozie Obioma, Indian Anuradha Roy and Anna Smaill from New Zealand.

Lalami is now based in the US in Santa Monica but was born in Rabat making her the first Morrocan-born person to be nominated.

Man Booker longlist 2015 - in pictures

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Clegg, Obioma and Smaill are all debut novelists.

The longlist was selected from 156 books by a panel of five judges chaired by Michael Wood including Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, John Burnside, Sam Leith and Frances Osborne.

Wood said: “We had a great time choosing this list. Discussions weren’t always peaceful, but they were always very friendly. We were lucky in our companions and the submissions were extraordinary.

“The longlist could have been twice as long, but we’re more than happy with our final choice.

“The range of different performances and forms of these novels is amazing. All of them do something exciting with the language they have chosen to use.”

The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 15 with the overall winner named on October 13 at a ceremony broadcast on the BBC from Guildhall.

Shortlisted authors each received £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book, while the winner will receive a prize of £50,000.

Follow Miranda Bryant on Twitter: @mirandeee

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