Train ride inspired novel up for prize

A 29-year-old debut novelist has been shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize – for a book she began writing on her mobile phone on her way to work.

British writer Fiona Mozley is up for the prize for Elmet, described by judges as “timeless in its epic mixture of violence and love”.

Seen through the eyes of a child, Elmet is the story of a moody, philosophical bareknuckle fighter who brings up his children “in defiance of social norms”.

She sits alongside heavyweights like Scottish author Ali Smith.

Mozley began writing Elmet, set in the copses of Yorkshire, on a train from York, where she had been visiting family and where she grew up, to London, where she was going straight to work.

Elmet wrote the first chapter as the landscape of her native Yorkshire whizzed past the window.

The author previously said she kept her writing secret from friends because it spurred her on.

“I did not want to set myself up for a fall, I didn’t want to expect it to be published,” the author – who has worked for a literary agency in London – previously told the Evening Standard.

“I thought, if I didn’t tell my friends I was writing it I’d be more likely to finish. So I just got on with it.”

The shortlist is: Paul Auster, 4321; Emily Fridlund, History Of Wolves; Mohsin Hamid, Exit West; Fiona Mozley, Elmet; George Saunders, Lincoln In The Bardo and Ali Smith, Autumn.

The winner will be announced on October 17.

Fiona Mozley started her novel on her phone while on a train.