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Anne Enright falls short of Booker shortlist

Irish author Anne Enright previously won the Man Booker Prize in 2007 
Irish author Anne Enright previously won the Man Booker Prize in 2007  Irish author Anne Enright previously won the Man Booker Prize in 2007 

DUBLIN author Anne Enright has failed to make the 2015 Man Booker Prize shortlist, as this year’s six finalists are named.

Enright was the only Irish author on this year’s longlist of 13 authors, for her book The Green Road.

The novelist, who became the first Laureate for Irish Fiction in January, won the prestigious award in 2007 with her fourth novel The Gathering.

Revealing the finalists at a central London press conference, Michael Wood, chairman of the judging panel, said that the debate about which books to include on the shortlist had been ‘violent but friendly.’

Mr Wood said: "We reread all 13 books on the longlist and in the process we rediscovered new pleasures in each.

"The writers on the shortlist present an extraordinary range of approaches to fiction. They come from very different cultures and are themselves at very different stages of their careers."

This is the second year the prize, billed as "fiction at its finest", has been open to writers of any nationality writing in English and published in the UK.

It was previously been restricted to the UK, the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe.

Among this year’s finalists are Jamaican author Marlon James, Chigozie Obioma of Nigeria and two Americans, Anne Tyler and Hanya Yanagihara.

James is the first Jamaican-born author to be short-listed, while Obioma (28) is this year’s youngest finalist and only the second Nigerian to be shortlisted following 1991 winner Ben Okri for The Famished Road.

Rounding off what the judges described as a ‘diverse and experimental’ shortlist are British authors Tom McCarthy and Sunjeev Sahota.

The Man Booker Shortlist

A Brief History of Seven Killings – Marlon James

Satin Island – Tom McCarthy

The Fisherman – Chigozie Obioma

The Year of the Runaways – Sunjeev Sahota

A Spool of Blue – Anne Tyler

A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara