Canadian writer Booker finalist

Calgary writer Esi Edugyan has been named a finalist for the Man Booker Prize for fiction. Three U.K. and two U.S. authors were also shortlisted for the award. Washington Black, the saga of an escaped slave, marks the second nomination for Edugyan in recent days after being named to the long list for this year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Booker short list announced Thursday includes U.K. poet Robin Robertson’s verse novel The Long Take and Everything Under by U.K. writer Daisy Johnson. At 27, Johnson is the youngestever Booker finalist. The U.S. finalists are Rachel Kushner’s prison story The Mars Room and Richard Powers’s tree-inspired tale The Overstory. Milkman by Northern Ireland writer Anna Burns rounds out the list. The winner of the $85,000 prize will be named on Oct. 16.