Writer joins heavyweights of literature on Booker shortlist
TWIST IN TALE: DEBUT NOVEL UP FOR PRIZE
IT WAS the kind of happy ending she would never have dared write herself, but York author Fiona Mozley has made it to the Man Booker Prize shortlist just weeks after her first book was published.
The 29-year-old, whose novel Elmet has won rave reviews, will now go up against literary heavyweights such as America’s Paul Auster and fellow British writer Ali Smith for the prestigious £50,000 prize.
“My editor called on Friday and said, ‘I’ve she had some good news, can you guess what it is?’
“I was too nervous to play that game, but when she said I had made the shortlist I couldn’t believe it. I was sworn to secrecy until the shortlist was made public and that has been really difficult. As a first-time author, just making the longlist was an unthinkable achievement, but this is doubly surreal.”
Ms Mozley, who first got the idea for the book while on a train travelling from London to York, is used to keeping secrets. Juggling writing the novel with studying for a PhD in medieval studies and working in York’s Little Apple Bookshop, she did not tell her family she was writing a novel until she secured a publishing deal late last year.
A place on the Man Booker Prize shortlist means guaranteed sales and Elmet’s publisher, JM Originals, now plans to print an additional 15,000 copies of the novel, described by judges as “timeless in its epic mixture of violence and love”.
Emily Fridlund, Mohsin Hamid and George Saunders complete this year’s shortlist and the winner will be announced on October 17.