Man Booker Shortlist Announced ... and a Consolation

The shortlist for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction was announced at a press conference in London yesterday. When the dust cleared, six contenders were left standing:

• Darkmans by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate)
• The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
• Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
• Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)

The Guardian does a superb job of running down the final six (even if they get a little snarkey at times). Also from The Guardian:

Speaking after the event, this year’s chair of the judges, Howard Davies, admitted that choosing a shortlist from what was widely regarded as an adventurous and intriguing longlist had been tough. “We hope,” he said, “that the choices we have made after passionate and careful consideration will attract wide interest.”

Meanwhile, Michael Redhill, one of the longlisted authors, walked away with the 2007 Toronto Book Award a couple of days ago. Redhill won with what turns out to be his ironically titled novel, Consolation. It’s not a bad consolation, either. Redhill will receive about $11,000 along with one of the most prestigious book awards in Canada. And Redhill was in tough company, including the winner of the 2006 Governor General’s Award, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam. Here’s what the 2007 Toronto Book Award shortlist looked like:

• Inside Toronto: Urban Interiors 1880s to 1920s by Sally Gibson (Cormorant Book)
• Toronto by Geoffrey James (Douglas & McIntyre)
• Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam (Doubleday Canada)
• Consolation by Michael Redhill (Doubleday Canada)
• Uptown Downtown by Raymond Souster (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box)