Bookworms: Three Irish Authors Have Made it Onto the Man Booker Prize Longlist

Three talented Irish authors have made it onto the Man Booker Prize longlist it has been revealed today.

Authors Donal Ryan, Colm Tóibín and Colum McCann have made it onto the list after the Man Booker prize judges had the daunting task of whittling down 151 books to the longlist.

The three Irish authors are in line for winning the world famous prize with their novels “The Spinning Heart”, “The Testament of Mary” and “TransAtlantic” respectively.

The “Man Booker Dozen” feature 13 books with seven countries represented. The literary prize is awarded to the author of the best full length novel and includes an impressive cash prize of £50,000.

Here’s the full long list for 2013:

1. Tash Aw, Five Star Billionaire (Fourth Estate).
2. NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names (Chatto & Windus).
3. Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries (Granta).
4. Jim Crace, Harvest (Picador).
5. Eve Harris, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (Sandstone Press).
6. Richard House, The Kills (Picador). 
7. Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland (Bloomsbury).
8. Alison MacLeod, Unexploded (Hamish Hamilton). 
9. Colum McCann, TransAtlantic (Bloomsbury). 
10. Charlotte Mendelson, Almost English (Mantle). 
11. Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (Canongate).
12. Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart (Doubleday Ireland).
13. Colm Tóibín, The Testament of Mary (Viking).

Only Crace and Irish author Tóibín have featured on the list before.

Previous Irish winners include Roddy Doyle, John Banville and Anne Enright.

The shortlist will be released late this year with the winner will be announced this October.

Pics via Man Booker Prize