Two Canadians make Booker Prize long list

ONDAATJE, EDUGYAN AMONG AUTHORS IN RUNNING FOR AWARD

Canadian authors Michael Ondaatje and Esi Edugyan have made the long list for this year’s Man Booker Prize in London.

Toronto-based Ondaatje made the list of 13 titles with “Warlight,” published by Jonathan Cape.

The honour comes just two weeks after he won the Golden Man Booker Prize, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Man Booker Prize, for 1992’s “The English Patient.”

Victoria-based Edugyan made this year’s long list for “Washington Black,” published by Serpent’s Tail.

She was on the Booker short list in 2011 for “Half-Blood Blues,” which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

The short list of six books will be announced on Sept. 20 and the winner of the prize, worth about $86,000, will be announced Oct. 16.

This year’s Booker long list also includes six writers from the U.K., three from the U.S., and two from Ireland.

A panel of five judges chose the long list from 171 submissions — the highest number of titles put forward in the prize’s history.

In a statement, the judges called Ondaatje’s novel “wonderfully atmospheric” and “beautifully paced,” and Edugyan’s book “a dazzling exploration of race in the Atlantic world, which also manages to be a yarn and a chase story.”

The prize is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the U.K. and Ireland.