Man Booker hopeful typed book on phone

Arts prize: Debut novelist up against British heavyweights and US trio

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 one of the world’s most prestigious literary prizes for Elmet, described by judges as “timeless in its epic mixture of violence and love”.

She sits alongside heavyweights like Scottish author Ali Smith and Mohsin Hamid for this year’s award.

Mozley began writing Elmet, set in Yorkshire, on a train from York, where she grew up, to London, where she was going straight to work.

The author previously said that she kept her writing secret from friends. Elmet is the story of a moody, philosophical bare-knuckle fighter who brings up his children “in defiance of social norms”.

Smith, who hails from Inverness, has been shortlisted for the fourth time, this year for Autumn, a story of a dying man “whose country seems to have changed after the Brexit vote”. Half the authors on the shortlist – including the bookies’ favourite, George Saunders for Lincoln In The Bardo – are US authors.

The other two US authors are Paul Auster for 4321, set against the Vietnam War and civil rights movement, and Emily Fridlund for History Of Wolves, which explores “the effects of neglectful parenting”.

British-Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid completes the shortlist for Exit West.

The winner will be announced on October 17.

“Timeless in its epic mixture of violence and love”