Chigozie Obioma, 5 others shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Nigeria’s Chigozie Obioma, along with five other writers; Marlon James, Tom McCarthy, Sunjeev Sahota, Anne Tyler and Hanya Yanagihara were Tuesday, announced  as the shortlisted authors for the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

The six names were announced by Chair of judges, Michael Wood, at a press conference at the offices of sponsor Man Group, Tuesday.

The judges remarked on the variety of writing styles, cultural heritage and literary backgrounds of the writers on the shortlist, which includes new authors alongside established names. Two authors come from the United Kingdom, two from the United States and one apiece from Jamaica and Nigeria.

This is the second year that the prize, first awarded in 1969, has been open to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in the UK. Previously, the prize was open only to authors from the UK & Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe.

‘Only on rare occasions does celebration come so closely aligned with regret. The regret of what we left out was tempered by the enormous excitement we have in presenting the six books on the shortlist.

‘We re-read all 13 books on the longlist and in the process we rediscovered new pleasures in each. The writers on the shortlist present an extraordinary range of approaches to fiction. They come from very different cultures and are themselves at very different stages of their careers,’ said Chair of judges Michael Wood.

The 2015 winner will be announced, Tuesday, October 13, in London’s Guildhall at a black-tie dinner that brings together the shortlisted authors and well-known figures from the literary world. The ceremony will be broadcast by the BBC.

In the meantime, there will be a number of public events featuring the shortlisted authors, including the Radio Times Festival (Sunday, 27 September), Birmingham Literature Festival (Thursday 8 October) and two events at The Times & The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival (Saturday, 10 September).

The traditional Man Booker Prize Readings will take place at the Southbank Centre on the eve of the prize, 12 October, hosted by Mariella Frostrup.

There will be two further events with the winning author: at Stylist LIVE on 15 October and at Apple’s Covent Garden store on 16 October.