Race Heats Up for Booker Prize as J.M. Coetzee Vies for Third Award

The shortlist for the prestigious Man Booker literary prize is now down to six authors. And several of them are Booker Prize royalty, including J.M. Coetzee, who has won the award twice before and A.S. Byatt who has won once.

South African Coetzee's past Booker awards were for 1999's Disgrace and 1983's The Life and Times of Michael K. Briton Byatt won in 1990 for Possession. This year, Coetzee is nominated for Summertime, the third book in a semi-autobiographical trilogy about his life as a writer. Byatt is nominated for the fictional The Children's Book, about a writer who writes a different, personal book for each of her children. If Coetzee wins this year, the Nobel laureate would be the first ever to win three times since the Booker's inception in 1969.

The prize is open to authors from Britain, the Republic of Ireland and former British colonies. With the exception of Coetzee, all the other nominees this year are British. Booker winners generally see huge jumps in book sales and walk away with a cash prize of about $82,000 (50,000 pounds).

Despite the heady competition, the dark horse and favorite to win this year is historical novelist Hilary Mantel. Her Wolf Hall, about the life and times of Thomas Cromwell during the reign of Henry VIII, is favored by bookies (no pun intended) with odds 10-11. Yes, people really do place bets on who wins the Booker Prize. Winners will be announced Oct. 6.

Reviews: J.M. Coetzee: Diary of a Bad Year

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