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Young London writer Adam Foulds joins the shortlist for this year's £50,000 Man Booker today with veteran South African writer JM Coetzee making his bid for a prize hat-trick.
Foulds, 34, from Forest Hill, is in the running with only his second novel, The Quickening Maze, while Coetzee, 69, would be the first writer to secure three Booker wins with his autobiographical volume, Summertime.
But it was Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's story of Thomas Cromwell at the court of Henry VIII, which was immediately installed as the bookies' odds-on favourite - at 4-5 - the first in the history of the prize.
Graham Sharpe of William Hill said it would cost them well into six figures if it won.
There are, however, other prize veterans. AS Byatt, another of the nine former Booker winners submitted for this year's award, is also shortlisted.
Nearly two decades after winning with Possession, London-based Byatt, 73, is bidding to make it a double win with The Children's Book, the saga of a dysfunctional well-to-do family.
And after two previous nominations, Sarah Waters, 43, hopes it's third time lucky with her latest historical mystery, The Little Stranger.
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, 61, is the final contender.
Broadcaster James Naughtie, chairman of this year's judges, said the shortlist offered a "feast" of tour de force writing.
"This is one of the best shortlists of the last couple of decades, without any question," he said.
There had been "difficult decisions" to be made in getting the 13-strong longlist down to six, with Colm Toibin and William Trevor much-lamented victims of the cull.
Naughtie's panel took it in turns to prize their chosen books today.
He described The Glass Room by Mawer as "a hypnotic read" and Wolf Hall by Mantel as "a huge, bold novel with a fantastic historical sweep".
Writer Lucasta Miller said AS Byatt's saga was an "enthralling" example of historical fiction.
Comedian and broadcaster Sue Perkins said Foulds' novel was an "extraordinary lush, lyrical book", while literary editor Michael Prodger said of Summertime: "We all came away wishing we could write like John Coetzee, but profoundly grateful we were not John Coetzee."
Professor John Mullan said Sarah Waters' entry was "an extraordinarily gripping story".
The winner will be announced at a dinner at Guildhall on 6 October.
THE SIX ON THE SHORTLIST
The Children's Book by AS Byatt (Chatto & Windus)
A saga of a well-to-do, arty but dysfunctional family from the 1880s to the First World War. Takes its name from the matriarch, Olive Wellwood, a famous writer, who creates a separate storybook for each of her children.
Summertime by JM Coetzee (Harvill Secker)
Using fiction, Coetzee tells his autobiography through a young English biographer working on a book about late writer John Coetzee. He interviews the author's friends, family and lovers to often self-flagellating effect.
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds (Jonathan Cape)
Based on real events in Epping Forest in around 1840, this is a poignant study of the insanity of the great nature poet John Clare incarcerated in an asylum with the brother of another young poet, Alfred Tennyson.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Virago)
The gripping mystery of a GP who is summoned to Hundreds Hall, a house he knew more than 30 years before as a young boy, and becomes drawn into the lives of the surviving Ayres family.
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (Little, Brown)
Newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer set up home in a beautiful steel and glass house as civilisation crumbles in Thirties Czechoslovakia. The house slips to Nazi then Soviet control, before drawing the Landauers back.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate)
The story of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII, ruthlessly pursuing his reforming agenda against a self-interested parliament and the romantic passions and murderous rages of the monarch.
Reader views (3)
no asian novels? i won't be wasting my time reading anything from this year's man booker prize shortlist.
- Edmund, paris, france
"Man Booker"? Surprised Harpy Harman hasn't demanded a change of name.
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
What did the critics make of the competition? The Omnivore has aggregated all the reviews for the Booker-shortlisted titles:
http://blog.theomnivore.co.uk/2009/09/08/man-booker-prize-2009-shortlist/
(We provide quotations and star ratings so you can gauge the critical reaction at a glance.)
- Anna Baddeley, London
