Jhumpa Lahiri's unreleased book features on 2013 Man Booker longlist

Judges for the 2013 Man Booker Prize have released the longlist for the literary prize today. The list features 13 authors and their novels, not many of which are very well-known. The twitter account of the Man Booker Prize posted a photo which mimicked the easel on which the announcement of the birth of the royal baby was made. Robert McFarlane, this year’s chair of judges, has hailed the list as one of the most diverse in the award’s history. “The list is wonderfully various in terms of geography, form, length and subject. These 13 outstanding novels range from the traditional to the experimental, from the first century AD to the present day, from 100 pages to 1,000, and from Shanghai to Hendon,” he said to The Guardian . Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary is, at 112 pages, the slimmest volume on a list that also features Richard House’s 912-page epic The Kills. The list features three first-time novelists. NoViolet Bulawayo from Zimbabwe for We Need New Names, Eve Harris for (of now unreleased) The Marrying of Chani Kaufman,  and Donal Ryan’s The Spinning Heart. [caption id=“attachment_979825” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Cover of The Lowlands, by Jhumpa Lahiri.[/caption] The Booker guidelines required publishers to submit titles with scheduled publication dates for print editions between 1 October 2012 and 30 September 2013. Consequently, even though Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland will be available only in September, it’s made it into the longlist. You can read an excerpt of Lahiri’s novel in The New Yorker. It’s been summarised on Amazon.com as “a tale of two brothers bound by tragedy, a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past, a country torn by revolution, and a love that lasts long past death.” The other unreleased novels include The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (the youngest writer on this year’s list at 27), Unexploded by Alison MacLeod, and Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson. The judges will meet again in September to name a shortlist. The winner of the Man Booker will be announced on October 15.