Irish authors are bound for Man Booker

AN Irish, Northern Irish and Clonakilty-based writer are among 22 authors long-listed for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

Wexford writer Colm Tóibín’s fifth novel, The Master, made the list, as did Belfast-born Ronan Bennett’s Havoc, In Its Third Year.

Author of Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell, who was born in England but lives in West Cork, is favourite to take the £50,000 (€74,224) prize.

Both Tóibín and Mitchell have made the shortlist in previous years: Tóibín for his fourth novel, The Blackwater Lightship, and Mitchell for his second, number9dream.

In London, where the list was announced yesterday, bookmakers William Hill installed Cloud Atlas as the favourite with odds of 3/1. A spokesman said they had never quoted a book at such short odds at the long-list stage.

However, rival book-maker Ladbrokes favoured Alan Hollinghurst, author of The Line of Beauty with odds of 4/1.

Mitchell’s novel comprises six interwoven narratives, from the journals of a Yankee notary crossing the South Pacific in the 1850s to a post-apocalyptic future in which fast-food restaurants are staffed by genetically-engineered slaves.

The Line of Beauty is set during the 1980s and chronicles an era of Thatcherism, excess and the arrival of AIDS. It is inspired by the work of Henry James, who also roused the imagination of Colm Tóibín, whose The Master is a fictionalised biography of James from 1895 to 1899.

The Booker long-list will be whittled down to six authors, to be announced on September 21.The winner will be unveiled on October 19 at a ceremony in the Royal Horticultural Halls in central London.