Man Booker Prize longlist is announced

The longlist for England’s Man Booker Prize was announced Wednesday, with 12 books – including “Bring Up the Bodies” by Hilary Mantel, currently a bestseller in the United States – making the cut.

The winner of the prize, which honors the year’s best novel, will be announced in October; the 12 nominees will be reduced to six in September. The Man Booker Prize is awarded to an author from Britain, one of the Commonwealth Nations, or Ireland.

The group of judges for the Man Booker Prize consists of editor of the Times Literary Supplement Peter Stothard; critic Dinah Birch; writer Amanda Foreman; reviewer Bharat Tandon; and actor Dan Stevens, who plays Matthew Crawley on the popular TV miniseries “Downton Abbey.”

Of the 12 nominees, only Mantel has won the Man Booker Prize before. Seven nominees have made the longlist for the first time.

“We did not set out to reject the old guard but, after a year of sustained critical argument by a demanding panel of judges, the new has come powering through,” Stothard, who is also the chair of the judges, said in a statement.

The nominees besides “Bodies” by Mantel the other titles on this list are: “Communion Town” by Sam Thompson; “Philida” by André Brink; “Skios” by Michael Frayn; “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” by Rachel Joyce; “The Lighthouse” by Alison Moore; “The Yips” by Nicola Barker; “The Garden of Evening Mists” by Tan Twan Eng; “Swimming Home” by Deborah Levy; “Umbrella” by Will Self; “Narcopolis” by Jeet Thayil; and “The Teleportation Accident” by Ned Beauman.