Waters heads Booker list after Mitchell misses out

SARAH Waters is tipped to win this year’s Man Booker Prize with her novel The Night Watch after favourite David Mitchell failed to make the shortlist.

The author of Tipping The Velvet heads a list on which four out of the six entrants are female.

The other books vying for the £50,000 (€74,000) prize are The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai; The Secret River by Kate Grenville; Carry Me Down by MJ Hyland; Mother’s Milk by Edward St Aubyn; and In The Country of Men by debut novelist Hisham Matar.

Clonakilty-based Mitchell had been long-listed for his novel Black Swan Green. He was installed as favourite after missing out on the prize in 2005 with Cloud Atlas, which was beaten by John Banville’s The Sea. He is one of several high-profile authors who failed to make the cut this year.

Two-time Booker winner Peter Carey had been fancied for his novel Theft: A Love Story, as had Andrew O’Hagan for Be Near Me.

Explaining their absence from the shortlist, chair of the judges Hermione Lee said: “These were all books that had extremely strong support and books which we thought were really considerable and moving and impressive, but in the end some books are more exciting and interesting to you than others.”

The judges were full of praise for the six shortlisted authors.

“Each of these novels has what we as judges were most looking for: a distinctive, original voice and audacious imagination,” Lee said.

“Each of these novels creates a world you inhabit without question or distrust while you are reading and a mood, an atmosphere, which lasts long after the reading is over.”

The winner will be announced on October 10.

The shortlist was chosen from a total of 112 entries.

Waters, 44, was nominated in 2002 for her last book Fingersmith.

The Night Watch follows the stories of four characters struggling to get by in post-war London.