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Press Release

Two Little, Brown Book Group titles shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction08/09/2009

Two Little, Brown titles; The Glass Room by Simon Mawer and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters have been shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. 

For four decades the prize - the leading literary award in the English speaking world - has brought recognition, reward and readership to the outstanding new novels of the year.  The shortlist was announced by Chair of judges James Naughtie at a press conference held at the Man Group plc's London headquarters.

The full shortlist of six books is as follows

The Children's Book, A S Byatt (Random House, Chatto and Windus)
Summertime, J M Coetzee (Random House, Harvill Secker)
The Quickening Maze, Adam Foulds (Random House, Jonathan Cape)
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
The Glass Room, Simon Mawer (Little, Brown)
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (Little, Brown, Virago)

Chair James Naughtie, comments:

"We're thrilled to be able to announce such a strong shortlist, so enticing that it will certainly give us a headache when we come to select the winner. The choice will be a difficult one. There is thundering narrative, great inventiveness, poetry and sharp human insight in abundance.

"These are six writers on the top of their form. They've given us great enjoyment already, and it's a measure of our confidence in their books that all of us are looking forward to reading them yet again before we decide on the prizewinner. What more could we ask?"

Sarah Waters has been shortlisted twice for Fingersmith (2002) and The Night Watch (2006).  Simon Mawer is shortlisted for his eighth novel, The Glass Room. 

The winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be revealed on Tuesday 6 October at a dinner at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast on BBC News across television, radio and online.  The winning author will receive £50,000 and can look forward to greatly increased sales and worldwide recognition.  Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their own book.

Chaired by broadcaster and author James Naughtie, the 2009 judges are Lucasta Miller, biographer and critic; Michael Prodger, Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph; Professor John Mullan, academic and author and Sue Perkins, comedian and broadcaster.

For the first time, the Man Booker Prize has partnered with private members club, The Groucho Club.  Based in Soho, London, The Groucho Club will host an exclusive event with some of the shortlisted authors on Monday 28 September.  The Groucho Club will also offer each of the six shortlisted authors a year's membership to the club.

On the eve of the winner announcement, Monday 5 October, the shortlisted authors will appear at Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall.  It is the only public opportunity to join the 2009 shortlisted authors for readings from their books, debate and an audience Q&A. 

For the second consecutive year the Man Booker Prize has teamed up with GoSpoken to provide free audio extracts from all 13 longlisted titles downloadable to your mobile phone.  Visit www.themanbookerprize.com/audio to listen online or text MBP to 60300* to download to your mobile phone.