Anuradha Roy's 'Sleeping on Jupiter' shortlisted for Man Booker Prize

New Delhi: Indian novelist Anuradha Roy, who is also a well-known publisher, has made it to the Booker longlist with her latest book, Sleeping on Jupiter.

Roy’s latest critically-acclaimed novel was among the 13-book longlist released on Wednesday, which includes Booker winner Anne Enright’s The Green Road, Marilynne Robinson’s Lila, British writer Sunjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways and Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread.

The £50,000 prize is now open to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in the UK.

Previously, the prize was open to authors from the UK & Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe.

In 2013, Indian poet-writer Jeet Thayil’s debut novel Narcopolis had made the shortlist, which was eventually won by Hilary Mantel in a rare Booker double for Bring Up The Bodies. Australian writer Peter Carey and South African Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee are the only two other authors who have won the Booker Prize twice.

London-born Jhumpa Lahiri, famous for Interpreter of Maladies (1999), The Namesake (2003), and Unaccustomed Earth (2008), was shortlisted in 2013 for her novel, The Lowland, but the prize was eventually won by New Zealander Eleanor Catton for her debut novel, The Luminaries. Aravind Adiga won the Booker for his debut novel The White Tiger in 2008, the last time an Indian author won the award.

This year’s longlist was selected by a panel of five judges chaired by Mic-hael Wood, and also comprising Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, John Burnside, Sam Leith and Frances Osborne. The judges considered 156 books for this year’s prize.

“We had a great time choosing this list. Discussions weren’t always peaceful, but they were always very friendly. We were lucky in our companions and the submissions were extraordinary. The longlist could have been twice as long, but we’re more than happy with our final choice. The range of different performances and forms of these novels is amazing. All of them do something exciting with the language they have chosen to use,” Wood said.

The six-book shortlist will be chosen from the 13-book longlist on September 15. The Booker Prize, which is marking its 46th year in 2014, will be handed over on October 13 at the Guildhall in London when the final winner will be revealed.

The six shortlisted wri-ters will each be awarded £2,500 and designer-bound edition of their book. The winner will receive a further £50,000.