Two Indians are among 13 novelists in contention for this year's Man Booker Prize after the judges tore up nearly all predictions and disregarded virtually all star literary novelists.
Indian Nikita Lalwani's first novel Gifted and Indra Sinha's Animal's People are among the 13-title longlist for the 50,000 pounds (about Rs 41 lakhs) prize.
A six-strong shortlist will be unveiled next month and the winner will be announced in October.
Nikita Lalwani, 33, was born in Rajasthan and raised in Cardiff in the UK. After studying English at Bristol University, she went on to work for the BBC, directing factual television and documentaries. She lives in London with her husband and child.
Indra Sinha's Animal's People, published in March this year, is set in a fictional Indian town called Kaufpur, a place of terror and dread based on the Bhopal gas tragedy.
The bookies installed Ian McEwan (On Chesil Beach) as a 3-1 favourite to win this year's prize.
The others in the longlist are: Nicola Barker (Darkmans), Edward Docs (Self Help), Tan Twan Eng (The Gift of Rain), Anne Enright (The Gathering), Mohsin Hamid (The Reluctant Fundamentalist), Peter Ho Davies (The Welsh Girl), Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip), Catherine O'Flynn (What Was Lost), Michael Redhill (Consolation) and A N Wilson (Winnie & Wolf).
UK's leading bookstore Waterstone's called this year's longlist a giant-felling list. Heavyweight writers who failed to make the cut include Doris Lessing and past winners Thomas Kenneally, J M Coetzee and Graham Swift.
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