Nigerian Chigozie Obioma Makes Booker Prize shortlist

The Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year. The prize is the world's most important literary award and has the power to transform the fortunes of authors and publishers.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015 is chaired by Michael Wood. The judges are: Ellah Allfrey, John Burnside, Sam Leith and Frances Osborne.

The winner will be announced on 13 October.

The shortlist of authors and titles is as follows:

• Marlon James (Jamaica), A Brief History of Seven Killings
• Tom McCarthy (UK), Satin Island
• Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), The Fishermen
• Sunjeev Sahota (UK), The Year of the Runaways
• Anne Tyler (US), A Spool of Blue Thread
• Hanya Yanagihara (US), A Little Life

At 28 years old, Obioma is the youngest nominee and has been shortlisted for his debut novel, while Marlon James is the first Jamaican-born author to be nominated for the prize.

McCarthy is the only shortlisted author to have been nominated before, for C in 2010.

This year's prize continues the policy introduced last year of allowing all authors writing in English, regardless of nationality, to be considered for the award.

Before 2014, the prize - first presented in 1969 - was only open to authors from the UK and the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe.

The chairman of the judges, Michael Wood, said: "We are delighted by the diversity of the list but it is an accident. We were not looking for diversity.

"It suggests the novel is alive and well in different places."

BWood is joined on the 2015 panel of judges by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, John Burnside, Sam Leith and Frances Osborne. The judges considered 156 books for this year's prize.

     

The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. The winner will receive a further cheque for £50,000.

Chigozie Obioma was born in 1986 in Akure, Nigeria.

His short stories have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Reviewand New Madrid. He was a Fall 2012 OMI Fellow at Ledig House, New York.

 He has lived in Nigeria, Cyprus and Turkey, and currently resides in the United States, where he has completed an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan and is now assistant professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

culled from themanbookerprize.com

Well done Chigozie!