The 2005 Booker Prize longlist of 17 semi-finalists was recently announced. The £50,000 (approximately $90,600) prize, sponsored by the Man Group investment company, is given for the best novel of the year by a citizen of the British Commonwealth or Ireland. The shortlist will be announced on September 8; the winner will be named on October 10.
The semi-finalists are Tash Aw for The Harmony Silk Factory (Fourth Estate), John Banville for The Sea ( Picador), Julian Barnes for Arthur & George (Jonathan Cape), Sebastian Barry for A Long for Long Way (Faber & Faber), J.M. Coetzee for Slow Man (Secker & Warburg), Rachel Cusk for In the Fold (Faber & Faber), Kazuo Ishiguro for Never Let Me Go (Faber & Faber), Dan Jacobson for All for Love (Hamish Hamilton), Marina Lewycka for A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian (Viking), Hilary Mantel for Beyond Black (Fourth Estate), Ian McEwan for Saturday (Jonathan Cape), James Meek for The People’s Act of Love (Canongate), Salman Rushdie for Shalimar the Clown (Jonathan Cape), Ali Smith for The Accidental (Hamish Hamilton), Zadie Smith for On Beauty (Hamish Hamilton), Harry Thompson for This Thing of Darkness (Headline), and William Wall for This is the Country (Hodder & Stoughton).
