Two Indian writers in Man Booker Prize shortlist

GREAT AUTHORS: Aravind Adiga and Amitav Ghosh have made it to the shortlist for Man Booker Prize 2008.

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London: The shortlist for Man Booker 2008 is out and two Indian authors have made it to the list.

The two Indian authors, Aravind Adiga and Amitav Ghosh, have made it to the shortlist for Man Booker Prize for Fiction for the year 2008 that was announced in London on Tuesday afternoon.

“I am very happy with the shortlist. I think India is particularly represented on that list. But that's because Indians are great writers and also great cricketers. Unfortunately there isn't a booker for cricket,” says Judge Man Booker Prize 2008 Hardeep Singh Kohli.

Two very different Indian authors with two different kinds of books are amongst the finalists for this year’s award.

While veteran author Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies is set around the first opium war, Arvind Adiga's debut novel The White Tiger is about contemporary India.

Ghosh finds himself in the shortlist for his novel Sea of Poppies, the first in Ghosh's ambitious IBIS trilogy set in the 19th century. This novel deals with the pre-opium war period.

But it is a double stroke of luck for Adiga. The author not only made it to the Booker shortlist but also to the best seller's list in India with his debut novel The White Tiger.

Adiga's book is about the ugly reality of contemporary India through the eyes of a rickshaw puller's son.

And Adiga is not the only debutante on the shortlist. Australian author Steve Toltz is also in the run for the prestigious prize for his maiden novel A Fraction of the Whole.

While British journalist and writer Linda Grant is the only woman who made it to the list for The Clothes on their Backs, Irish playwright and novelist Sebastian Barry for The Secret Scripture and London born Philip Hensher for The Northern Clemency complete the shortlist for this year's Booker.

Some of the big names like Salman Rushdie and the bookies favourite, Joseph O' Neill were left out.

The winner’s name will be announced on October 14 and the winning writer will be handed the £50,000 in prize.