The six finalists for the Lost Man Booker Prize, which was created to retroactively honour books excluded from Booker contention in 1970, have been announced, and Canada’s one potential nominee “ Margaret Laurence’s longlisted The Fire Dwellers “ was left out. According to the Associated Press:

The six are Patrick White’s The Vivisector, J.G. Farrell’s Troubles, Mary Renault’s Fire From Heaven, Nina Bawden’s The Birds on the Trees, Shirley Hazzard’s The Bay of Noon, and Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat.

… Of the finalists, only Hazzard and Bawden are still alive, but all the books are still in print. Farrell won the Booker in 1973 for The Siege of Krishnapur, and Spark and Bawden have been finalists. The winner will be decided by public vote on the Booker Web site and announced May 19.