British author McEwan joint favourite to win Booker Prize
LONDON (AFP) — British author Ian McEwan and his New Zealand counterpart Lloyd Jones are the joint favourites to win the prestigious Booker Prize for Fiction on Tuesday, while another shortlisted novel about Muslim experiences in post-9/11 America has also made headlines.
McEwan and Jones are among six writers in contention for the 50,000-pound (102,000-dollar, 72,000-euro) prize, to be awarded in a ceremony at the Guildhall in London on Tuesday evening.
McEwan, who won in 1998 for his novel "Amsterdam", is the bookmakers' 6/4 joint favourite for "On Chesil Beach", together with Jones's "Mister Pip".
Now in its 39th year, the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction is awarded to the best work in the genre by an author from Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland.
The book must have been published in the past year and originally written in English. Both the winner and the shortlisted authors are almost guaranteed a worldwide readership and a dramatic boost in sales.
All the writers apart from the thrice-nominated McEwan are making their shortlist debut.
The other authors are British-Indian Indra Sinha for "Animal's People"; Britain's Nicola Barker for "Darkmans"; British-Pakistani Mohsin Hamid for "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" and Ireland's Anne Enright for "The Gathering".
Aged 35, Hamid is the youngest on the shortlist.
McEwan's "On Chesil Beach" is set on the southern English coast in the 1960s and focuses on a shy couple's wedding night. The judging committee described it as a "subtle exploration of the sexual politics of a bygone era."
Jones's "Mister Pip" takes place in 1991 on a war-torn South Pacific island, whose reclusive sole white man re-opens the school to introduce the children to the novels of Charles Dickens. But on an island at war, the power of fiction has dangerous consequences.
"There has never been a betting plunge like this on the Booker," said Graham Sharpe with bookmakers William Hill.
"Jones was the 20/1 outsider of the field at the long-list stage yet when the short-list was announced he had been so heavily backed that he became a clear favourite," Hill said.
But Booker juries are notoriously unpredictable and there could yet be a surprise win for one of the other shortlisted books.
Hamid's "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" follows the life of an idealistic young Muslim man who leaves Pakistan for New York, but is regarded with suspicion after the 2001, September 11 attacks and becomes paranoid and resentful about the United States.
Much has been made of the fact that the bearded narrator tells his audience, a mysterious American stranger in a cafe in Lahore, Pakistan, that he smiles as he watches the twin towers of the World Trade Centre collapse.
"The political positions of both Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush are founded on failures of empathy toward people who seem different," the author said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine in April this year.
Sinha's novel "Animal's People" is about Animal, whose spine twisted after a chemical leak in Khaufpur, leaving him walking on all fours. He investigates the motives of a stranger who arrives to set up a free clinic for disaster victims.
Barker's "Darkmans" is about love and jealousy in a modern English town, in which the past creeps up on the present with some troubling effects.
"The Gathering" by Enright is a family epic tracing sexual hurt and redemption through three generations, showing how memories warp and family secrets fester.
Last year's winner was Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss", which concerned the difficulties of life in post-colonial India and as an illegal immigrant.
Shortlist:
-- "Darkmans" (Nicola Barker)
-- "The Gathering" (Anne Enright)
-- "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" (Mohsin Hamid)
-- "Mister Pip" (Lloyd Jones)
-- "On Chesil Beach" (Ian McEwan)
-- "Animal's People" (Indra Sinha)
- Man Booker Prize for Fiction: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/
