International

Indian, Pakistani in Booker race

LONDON: For the first time, the race for Britain’s £50,000 Man Booker prize has an Indian and a Pakistani novelist pitted against each other, though the chances of either of them winning it are rated extremely low.

Indra Sinha and Mohsin Hamid are among the six writers short-listed for this year’s prize to be announced on October 16. Nikita Lalwani, a third contender from the subcontinent, was long-listed but did not make it to the shortlist though some critics found her book Gifted (the story of a teenage British-born Indian girl struggling to cope with parental pressure) more compelling than Ms. Sinha’s Animal’s People, about the Bhopal gas tragedy; and Mr. Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a fictional first-person account of how a U.S.-based young Pakistani falls out of love with America after 9/11.

Indian writers or those of Indian origin have been a regular feature of the Booker Prize since its inception in 1968 and at least five — Salman Rushdie, V.S.Naipaul, Arundhati Roy, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Kiran Desai — have won it but this is the first time that a Pakistani novelist is knocking at the door.

Bangladesh nearly made it in 2003 when Monica Ali’s Brick Lane came very close to winning the prize.

This year’s shortlist is dominated by what one newspaper called literary “minnows” . With the exception of Ian McEwan, a previous Booker winner, and widely expected to repeat the performance this year, all are relatively unknown.

They include British writer Nicola Barker, Irish novelist Anne Enright, and New Zealand’s Lloyd Jones.

Jones’ s Mister Pip, inspired by Great Expectations, is a hot favourite and, judging by the odds, it could pip Mr. McEwan’s On Chesil Beach at the post . Many believe that at less than 200 pages Mr. McEwan’s book is too slight to qualify as a novel but Sir Howard Davies, chairman of the jury, defended the choice hailing it as a “very tight and very taut novel.”

Organisers of the Prize rejected criticism that the list was not exciting enough and loaded with too many unknown names. “One of the joys of this prize is identifying talent for the future. It is a strong list and if we had six well-known names every year we would be criticised for not encouraging new talent,” a spokesman said.

Last year, Kiran Desai won the prize for The Inheritance of Loss. This time it looks like a toss-up between Mr. McEwan and Jones, unless a dark horse emerges in the lead up to the final day.

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