Man Booker reveals 2018 shortlist, Daisy Johnson youngest author ever on list

The Man Booker Prize on September 21 announced the 2018 shorlist. The list features two debut novels, of which, one is the youngest author ever to make the list. This year also sees a second shortlisting for Canadian author Esi Edugyan. The list of six is dominated by women author.

Their names were announced by 2018 Chair of judges, Kwame Anthony Appiah, at a press conference at the offices of Man Group, the prize’s sponsor. He remarked that each of these novels is a miracle of stylistic invention in which the language takes centre stage.

The shortlist, which features four women and two men, covers a wide range of subjects, from an 11 year-old slave escaping a Barbados sugar plantation, to a D-Day veteran living with post-traumatic stress disorder.

With the announcement, 27-year-old Daisy Johnson, one of the six on the shortlist for the literary fiction prize, became the youngest author ever to be recognised for her book Everything Under.

The other five authors on the list are Anna Burns, Esi Edugyan, Rachel Kushner, Richard Powers and Robin Robertson.

Announcing the shortlist at a press conference in London, the chair of this year's judging panel, Kwame Anthony Appiah, said: 'All of our six finalists are miracles of stylistic invention. In each of them the language takes centre stage. And yet in every other respect they are remarkably diverse, exploring a multitude of subjects ranging across space and time."

He added, "These books speak very much to our moment, but we believe that they will endure."

The list of 13 authors from the longlist announced in July this year was whittled down to the final six by the five-strong judging panel comprised of Appiah, as well as Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, cultural critic Leo Robson, writer and critic Jacqueline Rose and graphic novelist Leanne Shapton.