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Publisher Random House has scored three titles on the shortlist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Little, Brown picks up two, with HarperCollins claiming the sixth title. Penguin, which had three titles on the longlist, by Ed O'Loughlin, James Scudamore and William Trevor, were denied any placing. The controversial Me Cheeta has also missed out.
Previous winners A S Byatt and J M Coetzee are in the running, as are the big sellers Sarah Waters and Hilary Mantel.
Chair James Naughtie said: "We're thrilled to be able to announce such a strong shortlist, so enticing that it will certainly give us a headache when we come to select the winner. The choice will be a difficult one. There is thundering narrative, great inventiveness, poetry and sharp human insight in abundance.
"These are six writers on the top of their form. They've given us great enjoyment already, and it's a measure of our confidence in their books that all of us are looking forward to reading them yet again before we decide on the prizewinner. What more could we ask?"
The winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be revealed on 6th October 2009 and broadcast on BBC News across television, radio and online. The winning author will receive £50,000; each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their own book.
The shortlist in full:
A S Byatt The Children's Book (Random House, Chatto and Windus)
J M Coetzee Summertime (Random House, Harvill Secker)
Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Random House, Jonathan Cape)
Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown)
Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Little, Brown, Virago)