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Indian-origin author in Booker prize longlist

London-based Mukherjee has been selected for his second novel, ‘The Lives of Others’, published in May this year. The book is based in the author’s birth place of Kolkata and centres around a dysfunctional Ghosh family in the 1960s.

Mukherjee, who went on to study at Oxford and Cambridge Universities,?reviews fiction for the ‘Times’ and the ‘Sunday Telegraph’. His first novel ‘A Life Apart’ was a joint winner of the Vodafone-Crossword Award in India. There are six novels from Britain, five from the US, one from Australia and one from Ireland shortlisted for the prize. For the first time in its 46-year history, the 50,000 pounds prize has been opened up to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in the UK.

Previously, the prize was open to authors from the UK & Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe.

First awarded in 1969, the prize is recognised as the touchstone for high quality literary fiction written in English. Australia’s Richard Flanagan is the only non-British representative of the Commonwealth on the 13-strong list, while US novelists fill four spots.
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