Indian-origin British author Sunjeev Sahota is among six writers shortlisted for the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction for 2015. The six names were announced by chair of judges, Michael Wood, at a press conference. Sahota’s “The Year of the Runaways” deals with the experience of illegal immigrants from the Indian subcontinent in Britain.
This is the second year that the prize, first awarded in 1969, is open to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in Britain. Previously, the prize was open only to authors from Britain and the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe.
Sahota, a third-generation British-Indian born in 1981, debuted with “Ours Are the Streets” in 2011, about a British Pakistani youth who becomes a suicide bomber.
The other nominees are,
- Marlon James (Jamaica) for A Brief History of Seven Killings
- Tom McCarthy (UK) for Satin Island
- Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) for The Fishermen
- Anne Tyler (US) for Spool of Blue Thread
- Hanya Yanagihara (US) for A Little Life.
Man Booker Prize
- The Man Booker Prize for Fiction was formerly known as the Booker-McConnell Prize.
- It is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original novel, written in the English language, and published in the UK.
Test Your Knowledge
Who won the Man Booker Prize in the year 2014?
Name the Indians who have won the Man Booker Prize?
