McEwan on course for double Booker win

ON THE day that the film version of his last novel, Atonement, goes on general release, Ian McEwan was installed as the clear favourite to win Britain's premier literary award for the second time.

McEwan's novella, On Chesil Beach, which was yesterday shortlisted for the £50,000 Man Booker Prize, already outsells all the other five books on the list.

Bookmakers yesterday put McEwan at 6/4-on to be the first British double-Booker winner. Australia's Peter Carey and the South African JM Coetzee are the only writers to have won twice.

"A McEwan win will mean a five- figure pay out for us already," said a spokesman for Ladbroke's last night. "It's the result we're now dreading."

The shortlist has stripped away all debut novelists and books from small publishers, leaving English novelist Nicola Barker and New Zealander Lloyd Jones as the biggest threats to McEwan, a winner in 1998 with Amsterdam.

"There's no common theme to the books on the shortlist," said Kes Nielson, head of book buying at Amazon.co.uk. "But this is the most up-to-date Man Booker shortlist I can remember."

Last month, Howard Davies, chair of the judges, expressed surprise that so many of the entries (14 out of 110) dealt with Second World War themes. Interestingly, two books on the longlist that did - by Peter Ho Davies and AN Wilson - did not make the final cut. The winner will be announced on 16 October.

SIX OF THE BEST LINE UP FOR AWARD

• DARKMANS, by Nicola Barker

Finely-plotted and multi-stranded novel on an epic scale charting the way in which the past keeps intruding into the lives of its characters in present-day Ashford, Kent. Miles away from a traditional narrative novel in structure, but written with a compelling confidence.

Nicola Barker was longlisted for her 2004 novel Clear, inspired by David Blane's London stunt in which he lived in a transparent box. The year before she was voted one of Granta's Best Young Novelists of the decade.

• THE GATHERING, by Anne Enright

The Irish Hegarty family gather together to mourn the suicide of young Liam, who has walked into the sea at Brighton with stones in his pockets. Three generations of the family's sexual secrets and lies are uncovered through the eyes of Veronica Hegarty who, according to The Scotsman critic Tom Adair, is "Enright's most stunning creation, so fully-realised that the words simply melt into pictures and moods". Enright's last novel, The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize.

• THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, by Mohsin Hamid

Changez, an idealistic young Muslim, leaves Pakistan for the United States, where he has a glittering job on Wall Street, a love affair with an American woman and apparent acceptance by Manhattan society. All this unravels after 9/11, leaving him resentful and paranoid.

Hamid, 36, now lives in London, but his earlier career partly mirrors Changez's. His debut novel, Moth Smoke, was a finalist for the premier award for best American first novel.

• MISTER PIP, by Lloyd Jones

On a lush tropical island in the South Pacific, civil war rages between the Papua New Guinea government and the rebels. In the midst of all this, a reclusive white teacher, Mr Watts, reopens the island's only school, determined to drill his love of Dickens into the children.

New Zealander Lloyd Jones, 52, this year won the Commonwealth Prize for best book with this novel. A vividly drawn tribute to the power of story-telling, it also is heavily based on his own travels in PNG's strife-torn islands.

• ON CHESIL BEACH, by Ian McEwan

It's July 1962, and newly-weds Edward and Florence are about to start their honeymoon at a hotel overlooking Chesil Beach. Unspoken fears and unexpressed feelings turn their wedding night into a disaster. Pitch-perfect throughout, this emotionally taut novella is a subtle exploration of sexual politics in a bygone age.

McEwan, 59, won the Booker Prize in 1998 with Amsterdam. He was shortlisted in 2001 for Atonement, the film version of which goes on general release today.

• ANIMAL'S PEOPLE, by Indra Sinha

He's called Animal because after the chemical spill in the Indian town of Khaufpur, his spine was so badly twisted he can only walk on all fours. When American Elli Barber arrives to set up a free clinic to help victims of the disaster, he's deeply suspicious of her motives and starts to investigate just exactly why she is there.

Indra Sinha, 57, was born in India and had a successful career in advertising before writing full time. His first novel, The Cybergypsies, was published to widespread critical acclaim.