2014 Man Booker Prize Shortlist

Kolkata-born British author Neel Mukherjee’s latest novel The Lives of Others, set in troubled Bengal of the 1960s and centred around a dysfunctional family, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize 2014, in its debut as a global literary award. Mr. Mukherjee, who studied at Oxford and Cambridge, was also the only Indian-origin author to be longlisted earlier this year, the first time the prestigious literary award opened up for anyone writing in English regardless of nationality.

Mr. Mukherjee, now a British citizen, reviews fiction for the Times and the Sunday Telegraph and his first novel, A Life Apart was a joint winner of the Vodafone-Crossword Award in India.

Previously, the prize was open only to authors from the U.K. and Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe. For the first time in its 46-year history, the £50,000-prize has been opened up to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in the U.K.

Man Booker Prize and International Man Booker Prize - a comparison