Booker number two?
Lloyd Jones‘ Mister Pip has made the Man Booker Prize longlist, alongside works by Ian McEwan and A N Wilson. The 13 titles were selected from over 100 international entries. “As for the eventual winner, the smart money will, inevitably, fly to McEwan’s On Chesil Beach,” writes Guardian critic DJ Taylor. “I shall be backing the New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones’s Mr Pip, a devastating projection of Great Expectations set on a war-torn Pacific island.” Keri Hulme is the first and only NZ author to win the prestigious prize, for The Bone People in 1985. The shortlist will be announced September 6.
