Kannada author in Man Booker Prize shortlist

Kannada author UR Ananthamurthy has been shortlisted among 10 other authors for the international Man Booker Prize for fiction. Ananthamurthy, 80, is the only Indian among to have made it to the final list of the prestigious prize announced at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in Jaipur on Thursday.

Considered to be one of the most important voice of the ‘new movement’ in Kannada language, Ananthamurthy has written five novels, eight short story collections and three poetry collections that have been translated into other languages in India as well as in Europe.

The author studied English literature at the Univesity of Mysore and earned his doctorate from University of Birmingham.

Best known for his 1966 novel Samskara, the author was also shortlisted for DSC Prize for South Asian literature in 2012 for his novel Bharatipura (published in English in 2010).

Other finalists of 2013 include Aharon Appelfeld (Israel), Lydia Davis (United States), Intizar Husain (Pakistan), Yan Lianke (China), Marie Ndiaye (France), Josip Novakovich (Canada), Marilynne Robinson (US), Vladimir Sorokin (Russia) and Peter Stamm (Switzerland).

Peter Stamm is the first Swiss author who has made it to the final list. Previous winners of the £60,000 pound award include Canada's Alice Munro, Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe and Philip Roth of the United States.

The award, an offshoot of Britain's better-known Man Booker novel-of-the-year prize, is awarded for a lifetime's work. It is open to authors of all nationalities whose work is available in English.The winner would be announced on May 22 in London, the chair of judges Christopher Ricks announced in Jaipur.