Ali is favourite to win the Booker
Monica Ali is 5-4 favourite to walk away with the Man Booker Prize tonight, according to bookmakers William Hill. Ali’s debut novel, ‘Brick Lane’, has been applauded for its honest and moving account of a Bangladeshi bride in east London.
Ms. Ali beat former winners JM Coetzee and Graham Swift on to the shortlist, and Martin Amis’s latest novel ‘Yellow Dog’ also failed to graduate from the longlist that was released this summer.
The full shortlist is: Monica Ali, ‘Brick Lane’; Margaret Atwood, ‘Oryx and Crake’; Damon Galgut, ‘The Good Doctor’; Zoe Heller, ‘Notes on a Scandal’; Clare Morrall, ‘Astonishing Splashes Of Colour’; and DBC Pierre, ‘Vernon God Little’.
The winner will be chosen by a panel chaired by the writer and academic Professor John Carey. Commenting on the contenders, he said: ‘This is giant killers’ year in the Man Booker. Three first novels and only one big name [Atwood] left.’
That echoes the situation last year when Yann Martel was the surprise winner with only his second novel, ‘The Life of Pi’. It went on to sell over a million copies after he won the coveted award.
The Booker Prize was established in 1968 and is awarded to the best book by a Commonwealth or Irish author. In recent years critics have suggested that to avoid being marginalised the prize should be opened up to American authors.
But the shortlist has also received plaudits this year for including more women than men – the first time that has happened in the prize’s 35-year history.
The winner receives £50,000 – and what the organisers describe as a ‘dramatic increase in sales’ – while the runners-up each receive £2,500.
