Man Booker International Prize Shortlist

Fourteen authors from 12 countries have been named to the shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize. The Man Booker International Prize is given every two years acknowledging a writer's contribution to world literature. The nominees are Evan S. Connell, Joyce Carol Oates and E.L. Doctorow (U.S.), Mahasweta Devi Bangladesh), James Kelman (U.K.), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Arnošt Lustig (Czech Republic), Alice Munro (Canada), V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/India), Antonio Tabucchi Italy), Ngugi Wa Thiong'O (Kenya), Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia), Peter Carey (Australia) and Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia). Jane Smiley, chair of the judges, said that choosing the shortlist had made the judges aware of "how unusual and astonishing the literary world really is. . . . We've all read books by authors we had never heard of before and they have turned out to be some of the best books we've ever read. It makes me wonder who else is out there untranslated into English."