LONDON, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Six novelists have been shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize, a literary prize awarded for the best original novel in English, it was announced Wednesday.
The shortlist, which features three women and three men, covers a wide range of subjects, from the struggle of a family trying to retain its self-sufficiency in rural England to a love story between two refugees seeking to flee an unnamed city in the throes of civil war.
Two debut novelists, including the 29-year-old British writer Fiona Mozley and the American young female author Emily Fridlund, are among the six up for the prestigious literary prize with 50,000 pounds award this year.
Mozley works part-time at a bookshop in York and wrote Elmet while commuting between London and York, according to BBC.
Emily Fridlund's novel History of Wolves tells the story from the perspective of a 14-year-old girl living on a commune in the U.S. midwest, as the judges comment it "a novel of silver prose and disquieting power that asks very difficult questions."
The other four shortlisted are veteran American writer Paul Auster, U.S. novelist George Saunders, Britain's Ali Smith and Pakistan-born Mohsin Hamid.
The judges remarked that the novels, each in its own way, challenge and subtly shift our preconceptions - about the nature of love, about the experience of time, about questions of identity and even death.
The winning book will be announced on Oct. 17.
