Three Irish authors – Colm Tóibín, William Trevor and first-time novelist Ed O’Loughlin have been named on the longlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize.
The judges today published the so-called ‘Man Booker Dozen’ – a list of 13 titles vying for the prestigious award to be announced in October.
Tóibín has been nominated for the critically acclaimed Brooklynand Trevor is nominated for Love and Summer, both published by Penguin Viking.
Wexford-born Tóibín was previously shortlisted in 2004 for his novel The Master, and in 1999 for The Blackwater Lightship.
Cork native Trevor has been shortlisted three times - in 1976 for The Children of Dynmouth, in 1991 for Reading Turgenevand in 2002 for The Story of Lucy Gault.
Journalist Ed O'Loughlin is a surprise nomination for his first novel Not Untrue and Not Unkind, published by Penguin Ireland.
Penguin Ireland said it believed O'Loughlin's novel was the first Irish-originated book to make a Booker list.
O'Loughlin's editor at Penguin, Brendan Barrington, said: "Ed O'Loughlin is an extraordinary writer, and this recognition is richly deserved. Not Untrue and Not Unkindis set largely in Africa and was written largely in Jerusalem. It was acquired and published from our offices in Dublin, making it, as far as we can tell, the first Irish-originated book to make a Booker list."
Chair of the judges, James Naughtie, said the panel believed this year’s longlist to be “one of the strongest lists in recent memory, with two former winners, four past-shortlisted writers, three first-time novelists and a span of styles and themes that make this an outstandingly rich fictional mix”.
"We considered more than 130 novels (including the work of nine former winners) and found ourselves travelling in a fertile landscape. We kept discovering new talent as well as reacquainting ourselves with familiar writers, and emerged with a feeling that we were part of an exceptional year,” Mr Naughtie said.
"Our fiction is in the hands of original and dedicated writers with fresh and appealing voices. This is an eclectic list, taking us from the court of Henry VIII to the Hollywood jungle, with stops along the way in a nineteenth century Essex asylum, an African warzone and a futuristic Brazilian city among other places.
"These are books that readers will want to get their hands on."
The 2009 shortlist will be announced on Tuesday September 8th at a press conference at Man Group's London headquarters.
The winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2009 will be revealed on Tuesday October 6th at a dinner at London's Guildhall.
The full longlist is as follows:
AS Byatt The Children's Book- Random House - Chatto and Windus
JM Coetzee Summertime- Random House - Harvill Secker
Adam Foulds The Quickening- Maze Random House - Jonathan Cape
Sarah Hall How to paint a dead man- Faber and Faber
Samantha Harvey The Wilderness- Random House - Jonathan Cape
James Lever Me Cheeta- HarperCollins - Fourth Estate
Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall- HarperCollins - Fourth Estate
Simon Mawer The Glass Room -Little, Brown
Ed O'Loughlin Not Untrue & Not Unkind- Penguin - Ireland
James Scudamore Heliopolis -Random House - Harvill Secker
Colm Tóibín BrooklynPenguin - Viking
William Trevor Love and Summer-Penguin - Viking
Sarah Waters The Little Stranger- Little, Brown - Virago