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Pick, Edugyan, deWitt make Booker longlist

Three Canadian authors have made the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction longlist, announced today. Alison Pick’s Far to Go (House of Anansi Press, Q&Q’s September 2010 cover profile), Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues (forthcoming from Thomas Allen & Son in September and profiled in the July-August 2011 issue of Q&Q), and Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers (House of Anansi) are vying for the title of “the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.”

It’s also worth noting three of the longlisted titles come from House of Anansi, which is also the domestic publisher of Stephen Kelman’s longlisted book, Pigeon English.

The full list includes:

  • Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape/Random House)
  • Sebastian Barry, On Canaan’s Side (Faber)
  • Carol Birch, Jamrach’s Menagerie (Canongate Books/HarperCollins)
  • Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (Granta/House of Anansi)
  • Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues (Serpent’s Tail/Thomas Allen)
  • Yvvette Edwards, A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
  • Alan Hollinghurst, The Stranger’s Child (Picador/Pan Macmillan)
  • Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English (Bloomsbury/House of Anansi)
  • Patrick McGuinness, The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
  • A.D. Miller, Snowdrops (Atlantic)
  • Alison Pick, Far to Go (Headline Review/House of Anansi)
  • Jane Rogers, The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
  • D.J. Taylor, Derby Day (Chatto & Windus/Random House)

The six-title shortlist will be revealed Sept. 6 and the winner announced Oct. 18. Each author included on the shortlist will receive £2,500 and a special edition of their book. The winner will be awarded an additional £50,000. The jury, chaired by Dame Stella Rimington, is made up of writer Matthew d’Ancona, author Susan Hill, author and politician Chris Mullin, and Gaby Wood, books editor at The Daily Telegraph.