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Bennett in Bollinger Everyman prize running

Alan Bennett is on the shortlist for this year's Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. He joins Julian Gough, Garrison Keillor, Will Self, John Walsh and first-time novelist, Joe Dunthorne.

The six shortlisted novels are Bennett's The Uncommon Reader (Profile), Dunthorne's Submarine (Hamish Hamilton), Gough's Jude: Level 1 (Old Street), Keillor's Pontoon (Faber), Self's The Butt (Bloomsbury) and Walsh's Sunday at the Cross Bones (Fourth Estate).

The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize is awarded to the best comic novel published in the last twelve months, and the winner will be presented with the prize at the Guardian Hay Festival in late May. They will receive a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année, and will have a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig named after the triumphant novel. The pig will visit the festival for the presentation.

The judges for this year’s prize are broadcaster and author James Naughtie, Everyman publisher David Campbell and director of the Guardian Hay Festival, Peter Florence.

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