The 2019 Booker Prize will see British Indian author Salman Rushdie, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood and four others battle it out for the coveted title in the fiction section. The original longlist of 13 was narrowed down and the shortlist was announced on Tuesday during a press conference at the British Library.
The six shortlisted authors will be contending to win one of the top awards in the literary sphere, which will be announced on October 14.
While Atwood's 'The Testaments', a sequel to her wildly popular dystopian novel 'The Handmaid's Tale' (1985), got her a spot in the shortlist, Rushdie's 14th novel 'Quichotte' secured his place. 'The Testaments' will be officially published next week.
The honour has been conferred upon both the authors in the past. Rushdie won it in 1981 for 'Midnight's Children' and Atwood received it in 2000 for her 10th novel 'The Blind Assassin.'
The others that made the cut, out of 151 submissions this year, are Lucy Ellmann (Ducks, Newburyport), Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other), Chigozie Obioma (An Orchestra of Minorities) and Elif Shafak (10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World).