Man Booker Prize 2017 The six authors on the shortlist

4321 by Paul Auster (Faber) A (very) big book by one of America’s big beasts, 4321 follows a New Jersey native who lives four parallel lives with subtle variations

Elmet by Fiona Mozley (JM Originals) Mozley, 29, grew up in Yorkshire, and the county’s landscape looms large in her debut, a brooding family drama that bursts into violence

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton) The British-pakistani writer’s meditation on migration follows a young couple as they flee civil war through mysterious black doors in the air

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (Bloomsbury) Saunders, a short-story veteran, summons up the ghost of Abraham Lincoln’s son in his first novel

History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (W&N) Minnesota-born Fridlund’s first novel is a coming-of-age story set in the remnants of a commune in the frozen American northwest

Autumn by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton) The first instalment in a seasonal quartet, Smith’s witty novel centres on two friends in the wake of the Brexit vote