British author Daisy Johnson has become the youngest author to be shortlisted for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.
The 27-year-old, one of the six on the shortlist for the literary fiction prize, has been recognised for her book Everything Under.
The other five authors on the list are British author Anna Burns for Milkman, Canadian author Esi Edugyan for Washington Black and Scottish poet Robin Robertson for The Long Take.
The list features four female authors and three British authors in total, as well as two American authors: Rachel Kushner for The Mars Room and Richard Powers for The Overstory.
Announcing the shortlist at a press conference in London, the chair of this year’s judging panel, Kwame Anthony Appiah, said: “All of our six finalists are miracles of stylistic invention. In each of them the language takes centre stage. And yet in every other respect they are remarkably diverse, exploring a multitude of subjects ranging across space and time.
We are pleased to announce our #ManBooker2018 shortlist. Read more about the list here: https://t.co/iL5pmgKpaZ pic.twitter.com/oseLM53vGE
— Man Booker Prize (@ManBookerPrize) September 20, 2018
“From Ireland to California, in Barbados and the Arctic, they inhabit worlds that not everyone will have been to, but which we can all be enriched by getting to know. Each one explores the anatomy of pain — among the incarcerated and on a slave plantation, in a society fractured by sectarian violence, and even in the natural world. But there are also in each of them moments of hope.
“These books speak very much to our moment, but we believe that they will endure. And we look forward to re-reading all of them as we make our way towards what will inevitably be the very difficult choice of only one of these brilliantly imaginative works as this year’s winner of the Man Booker Prize.”
The list of 13 authors from the longlist announced in July this year was whittled down to the final six by the five-strong judging panel comprised of Appiah, as well as Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, cultural critic Leo Robson, writer and critic Jacqueline Rose and graphic novelist Leanne Shapton.
In 2013, aged 28, New Zealander Eleanor Catton was previously the youngest winner of the £50,000 prize for her novel The Luminaries.
The Man Booker Prize for fiction was first awarded in 1969 and the winner will be announced on October 16.