LONDON — Debut novelists dominated the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, the judges announced Tuesday, while star authors like Hilary Mantel and Anne Tyler did not make the list. Four of the shortlisted books are by women. The number of debuts ‘‘was a surprise,’’ said Sameer Rahim, an author and one of the judges, in a news conference in London announcing the shortlist. In previous years, the Booker shortlist has been dominated by literary heavyweights, with works by Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Elif Shafak all on last year’s list. In 2018, a group of high-profile authors demanded — unsuccessfully — that the Man Booker Foundation bar U.S. authors from being eligible.

Source: Ethiopian News September 19, 2020 10:07 UTC