Hilary Mantel in contention for third Booker Prize after longlist revealed

The English author headlines a 13-book longlist that organisers admit is ‘unusual’ and ‘kaleidoscopic’.

British author Hilary Mantel, pictured in 2012, is in the running to win her third Booker Prize. Picture: AFP

Hilary Mantel is in the running to win a record third Booker Prize after the final instalment of her Tudor England trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, made a 13-book longlist that the organisers admit is “unusual” and “kaleidoscopic”.

The English author, who won the Booker for Wolf Hall in 2009 and its sequel Bring up the Bodies in 2012, is one of five dual Booker recipients, the others being JG Farrell, JM Coetzee, Peter Carey and Margaret Atwood.

The Mirror and the Light Hilary Mantel

Adelaide-based Coeztee is the only other one of the five who could have been in contention this year, for The Death of Jesus, also the conclusion of a trilogy, but it did not make the cut.

Mantel said she was “delighted’’ to make the longlist in what would be “an interesting and competitive year’’.

No Australian writers are on the longlist, which is dominated by eight debut novelists and includes six American writers and three who live in the US. Since American writers contentiously became eligible in 2014, two have won the prize: Paul Beatty and George Saunders. The shortlist for the £50,000 prize will be announced on September 15.

The judges describe Mantel’s 875-page novel, centred on Thomas Cromwell trying to survive Henry VIII, as a “masterful exhibition of sly dialogue and exquisite description brings the Tudor world alive’’.

The other senior writers on the longlist are American novelist Anne Tyler for Redhead by the Side of the Road and Irish-American author Colum McCann for Apeirogon. Tyler was short-listed in 2015 for her 20th novel, A Spool of Blue Thread.

The debut novelists in contention are Diane Cook (US) for The New Wilderness, Avni Doshi (US) for Burnt Sugar, Gabriel Krauze (UK) for Who They Was, Kiley Reid (US) for Such a Fun Age, Brandon Taylor (US) for Real Life, Glasgow-born, New York-based Douglas Stuart for Shuggie Bain, English actress and writer Sophie Ward for Love and Other Thought Experiments and Beijing-born American C. Pam Zhang for How Much of These Hills is Gold.

The 13-book longlist is rounded out by two writers of African background: Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga for This Mournable Body and Ethiopia-born, New York-based Maaza Mengiste for The Shadow King.

Booker Foundation literary director Gaby Wood notes the “unusually high proportion’’ of debut novels is a “surprise to the judges themselves’’.

“They had admired many books by more established authors, and regretted having to let them go. It is perhaps obvious that powerful stories can come from unexpected places and in unfamiliar forms. Nevertheless, this kaleidoscopic list serves as a reminder.’’

The judging panel, chaired by writer, editor and broadcaster Margaret Busby, is an interesting mix. Lee Child, creator of the mega-selling Jack Reacher novels, is there, as is classicist Emily Wilson, who has translated Homer’s The Odyssey. Poet and playwright Lemn Sissay and literary journalist and novelist Sameer Rahim complete the panel.

Yet despite Child’s presence, the only one of the 13 novels, whittled down from an initial field of 162, that has a loose connection with the crime world is Krauze’s Who They Was, a first-person account of a young man who has lived amid violent gangs.

“Each of these books carries an impact that has earned it a place on the longlist, deserving of wide readership. There are voices from minorities often unheard, stories that are fresh, bold and absorbing,’’ Busby says.

Four Australians and two adopted Australians have won the Booker: Tom Keneally in 1982, Coetzee in 1983 and 1999 (he was a South African at the time, moving to Australia in 2002), Carey in 1988 and 2001, DBC Pierre in 2003, Indo-Australian writer Aravind Adiga in 2008 and Richard Flanagan in 2014.