Man Booker Prize 2013 - The Longlist

So, the Booker Prize longlist is out, and a lot of people will have been wrong-footed by the thirteen titles. In particular, favourites like Evie Wyld, Nicholas Royle and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be disappointed to miss out. To me, the list is slightly reminiscent of the mid-2000s, when the prize was seen as being out of touch with public tastes, before the Stella Rimington years swung it back the other way into populism. It has something in common with the Granta Best of Young British Writers, in a heightened focus on Commonwealth authors, with representatives from Zimbabwe, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. After four years of UK-born winners, there’s a fair chance of a Commonwealth author winning this time round.

The Bookseller quotes chair of the judges Robert Macfarlane as saying "After we  put the list together we tried to see what links them together, and all that linked them was how varied they are, in form, in tone, in length. I think they are all very contemporary—even the historical books look forward, and they are interested in disasters, whether financial or natural, and globalisation."  Maybe this sense of internationalism, the need for literature to address globalisation in particular, will come to define the 2010s. As with Granta, the books are located across the globe, from Shanghai to Zimbabwe.

It’s heartening to see another small press, Sandstone, following in the footsteps of Salt and achieving a place on the list, and also eleven authors who are nominated for the first time. There haven’t been many big hitters publishing this year – readers will be excited about  upcoming releases by the likes of Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Coe and David Peace, but these have been overlooked – so there was a heightened sense of anticipation about the content of the list.

As for the favourites; Colm Toibin is an excellent writer, but The Testament of Mary may not be his best work; Jim Grace and NoViolet Bulawayo will probably fancy their chances, whilst maybe Eleanor Catton and Alison Macleod could be good outside shouts.

At the same time, The Guardian is launching Not The Booker Prize for a third year. My nomination has gone to Jess Richards’s Cooking With Bones, although I was tempted by Sam Byers’s Idiopathy and Nathan Filer’s The Shock of The Fall. I suspect Andrew Crumley’s The Secret Knowledge will be up there, and deservedly so, based on what I’ve read so far. The prose might not match up to Ms Richards’s, but the plot is dense with ideas and esoteric reference points, and there’s a sense that this could become a real cult classic.

So, what would have made your list? And who do you think will be up for prizes this time around? Let us know in the comments below.