Read Book Review

This year, the Man Booker Prize is demonstrating a unique pattern, a pattern of global reach. With writers right from Canada to Britain to New Zealand and (for the first time in the prize’s history) Zimbabwe, the shortlist looks promising. The famous India-American author Jhumpa Lahiri is among the selected six writers for the prize. Each now is running for the £50,000 prize.

These six superb works of fiction take us from gold-rush New Zealand to revolutionary Calcutta, from modern-day Japan to the Holy Land of the Gospels, and from Zimbabwe to the deep English countryside. World-spanning in their concerns, and ambitious in their techniques, they remind us of the possibilities and power of the novel as a form.

All the six novels are up for grab at Infibeam.com. 

The winner will be announced on October 15, following a year-long process in which judges read 152 novels, embarked on hours of discussion and admitted to a “sinking feeling” at being faced with the 800-page-long Catton novel. 

So, what are you waiting for, grab your copies today!

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

The only debut novel on the shortlist. The 31-year-old Zimbabwean author tells the story of Darling, a child who lives in a shanty called Paradise. 

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

New Zealander Catton, 27, is the youngest author on the shortlist. Her debut novel, The Rehearsal (2008), was longlisted for the Orange Prize. 

The book features Walter Moody, who is drawn into a mystery when he attempts to make his fortune in New Zealand's goldfields. 

Harvest by Jim Crace

Hertfordshire-born Crace, 67, the oldest author on the shortlist, has been writing fiction since 1974. Quarantine (1997) was previously shortlisted for the Booker. 

The book charts, over the course of seven days, the destruction of an English village and its way of life after a trio of outsiders put up camp on its borders. 

Crace has said the book will be his last work of fiction. 

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

London-born Lahiri, 46, lives in the US and holds UK and US citizenship. She has written four works of fiction including The Namesake, which was adapted into the film of the same name.

The Lowland, featuring the lives of two once inseparable children raised in Calcutta, is a novel about entangled family ties. This is a novel about distance and separation. A novel about the impossibility of leaving certain kinds of past behind." 

A Tale For The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Canadian-American writer Ozeki, 57, was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest in 2010 and is the author of three novels. 

A Tale For The Time Being, which features cyberbullying and a 105-year-old Buddhist nun, centres around a mystery that unfolds when the protagonist, Ruth, discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home.

The Testament Of Mary by Colm Toibin

Irish author Toibin, 58, is the author of five novels, including The Blackwater Lightship (1999) and The Master (2004), which were both shortlisted for the Booker. 

"A woman from history (is) rendered now as fully human" in the book, which features Mary, "living in exile and fear, and trying to piece together the events that led to her son's brutal death".

For enquiries visit:

http://www.infibeam.com/Books/2013-booker-prize-showcase.html