Booker Prize: Shortlist is young and female

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One of six contenders for the Booker Prize 2020: Maaza Mengiste with her novel "The Shadow King"

Photo: Basso Cannarsa / Opale / Leemage / ddp images

The candidates for this year's British Booker Prize have been announced.

The jury selected several debuts from 162 submissions.

The six contenders for the prestigious British literary award are:

• Diane Cook

   (USA): "The New Wilderness" 

• Tsitsi Dangarembga

   (Zimbabwe): "This Mournable Body"

• Avni Doshi

   (USA): "Burnt Sugar"

• Maaza Mengiste

   (Ethiopia / USA): "The Shadow King" 

• Douglas Stuart

   (Scotland / USA): Shuggie Bain 

• Brandon Taylor

   (USA): "Real Life" 

With four nominations, women are in the majority this year.

For several years now, authors from all over the world have been able to apply for the Booker Prize, and their novels must be published in English.

This year all nominees live outside the UK.

The six novels explore diverse aspects of life.

Readers learn from Diane Cook about a mother's struggle to save her daughter in a city that has become inhospitable due to the climate crisis.

Tsitsi Dangarembga writes about a woman who is confronted with poverty and morality in Zimbabwe.

Avni Doshi tells of a trip to India, of mother-daughter relationships and dementia.

Maaza Mengiste also writes about strong female figures who went to war in Ethiopia during the Italian invasion of 1935.

Douglas Stuart depicts the harsh reality of a marginalized family in Glasgow in the 1980s with humor.

A campus novel about racism and homophobia is nominated by Brandon Tayler.

"There have been more discoveries than usual this year," said Gaby Wood, director of the Booker Prize Foundation.

And surprises too: Hilary Mantel, who has already received the award twice - for the first two volumes of her trilogy on Thomas Cromwell - was not shortlisted this time.

The fact that the third volume, "Spiegel und Licht", certainly the most bulky of the extensive work, did not make it onto the shortlist, can be understood as a vote that the prospects of a younger generation are currently more of interest.

Her stories about "how great the inner workings of the mind, the imagination and the spirit is despite all circumstances", as the jury said in the statement of reasons.

The Booker Prize is the UK's premier literary prize and is endowed with £ 50,000.

Awarded since 1969, it was reserved until 2013 for authors from the British Commonwealth and Ireland whose novels were published in Great Britain.

Authors from other English-speaking countries have also been admitted since 2014.

Last year, two women authors were honored, the British Bernardine Evaristo and the Canadian Margaret Atwood.

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