Munro, Atwood, Ondaatje to vie for International Booker

Canadian literary heavyweights Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje are among 15 authors on the short list for the 2007 Man Booker International Prize, the fledgling literary honour recognizing a fiction writer's entire body of work.

Acclaimed short story writer Alice Munro joins fellow Canadian authors Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje on this year's shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize.
(Canadian Press)

This year's judging panel — writers Nadine Gordimer and Colm Toibin, with U.S. professor Elaine Showalter — was on hand in Toronto Thursday morning to announce the list of contenders for the £60,000 (close to $136,000 Cdn) prize, presented once every two years.

The list includes some of the most acclaimed writers in English from around the world, including Ian McEwan and Doris Lessing from Britain, Don DeLillo and Philip Roth from the U.S. and Peter Carey from Australia.

But several of the contenders, including Mexico's Carlos Fuentes and French writer Michel Tournier are competing on the basis of works in translation.

The full list of nominees:

• Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist and poet, author of Things Fall Apart (1958), A Man of the People (1966) and Another Africa (1998).
• Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet and novelist who won the 2000 Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin and is author of The Handmaid's Tale (1986) and The Penelopiad (2005).
• John Banville, Irish writer of The Book of Evidence (1989) and winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea.
• Peter Carey, Australian-born writer who now lives in New York, author of two Booker winners, Oscar & Lucinda in 1988 and True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001.
• Don DeLillo, U.S. author of White Noise (1985), Underworld (1997) and Falling Man (2007).
• Carlos Fuentes, Mexican writer living in the U.S., author of The Orange Tree (1993) and The Years with Laura Diaz (1999).
• Doris Lessing, British author of The Golden Notebook (1962) and The Sweetest Dream (2001).
• Ian McEwan, British author of Atonement (2001) and Saturday (2005) and Booker winner for Amsterdam (1998).
• Harry Mulisch, Dutch writer of The Discovery of Heaven (1992) and Siegfried (2001).
• Alice Munro, Canadian short story writer known for works such as Lives of Girls and Women and Friend of My Youth (1990).
• Michael Ondaatje, Canadian writer of Sri Lankan descent known for In the Skin of the Lion (1987) and The English Patient (1992).
• Amos Oz, Israeli writer of Black Box (1987) and A Tale of Love and Darkness (2003).
• Philip Roth, U.S. writer of Goodbye, Columbus (1959) and American Pastoral (1997).
• Salman Rushdie, Indian-born writer of The Moor's Last Sigh (1995) and winner of the Booker for Midnight's Children (1987).
• Michel Tournier, French author of Friday (1967) and The Midnight Love Feast (1989).

The jury spent the past week in Toronto, winnowing down its list. But the selection of three Canadian writers was not affected by the setting, the panel said.

"Canadians should take some pride at seeing such an extraordinary set of contemporary writers," said Showalter, who is chair of the jury.

There is no single Canadian voice, she said, pointing out that Ondaatje sets his novels in locations around the world, while Munro writes about rural small-town Canada, Showalter said.

She singled out Munro for special praise for the emotional impact of her work.

"You can feel the reality so intensely that it has meaning for everywhere in the world," she said.

'Service to literature'

Unlike other literary honours, organizers of the prize do not invite submissions from publishers. Instead, a list of authors is selected by each edition's jury.

In practice, the jury began with an "archival list" of authors nominated for the last prize, awarded in 2005, and each added their own favourite writers to the list. The initial list had more than 70 names, said Toibin.

"At the beginning of the process, we looked at our list and groaned," he said. "Then we added more names."

They have met twice before in the effort to winnow down the list and each jury member read six to 10 selections from each author to get an idea of their long-term development.

"This prize is more interesting and more of service to literature" than prizes given for a single book, said Gordimer, herself an acclaimed novelist.

"With the prize like this we can look at the writer's development in relation to the changes that are happening around that writer."

The top criterion for selection is quality of the writing, Showalter said, but the jury also has passionate discussions about a writer's contribution to the development of fiction and how they respond to world events.

"It's a very wonderful conversation among people who are really passionate about fiction," she said.

"You really see how people develop over time," Toibin added. "There are writers that you read 25 to 30 years ago and you go back to that work and see it fresh … or maybe it's the opposite, it no longer seems relevant."

Eligible writers are those who have published fiction originally in English or who have at least two works translated into English. Some writers were eliminated from the list because not enough of their work is available in translation, but the jury said it hopes to encourage more translation.

If a non-English speaking author is chosen, the winner may choose a translator of his or her work to receive a prize of £15,000 (about $34,000 Cdn).

Also, an author can only ever win the prize once. The inaugural winner was Albanian writer Ismail Kadaré.

The winner of the second Man Booker International Prize will be announced in early June, with an awards ceremony to follow in Oxford, England, on June 28.