Man Book Prize Long List Announced

The 13 books on the list include: one former Man Booker Prize winner; two previously shortlisted writers and one longlisted author; four first time novelists and three Canadian writers. The list also includes three new publishers to the prize - Oneworld, Sandstone Press and Seren Books.

The titles were chosen by a panel of five judges chaired by author and former Director-General of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington:

• Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
  Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)
  Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
  Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
  Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
  Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
  Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
  Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
  Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
  A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
  Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review)
  Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
  D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

I’m excited that Esi Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues was longlisted. It's the story of AfroGermans presence in the 1930s (Nazi Germany.)

“Berlin, 1939. A young, brilliant trumpet-player, Hieronymus, is arrested in a Paris cafe. The star musician was never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black.

Fifty years later, Sidney Griffiths, the only witness that day, still refuses to speak of what he saw. When Chip Jones, his friend and fellow band member, comes to visit, recounting the discovery of a strange letter, Sid begins a slow journey towards redemption.

From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating, little-known world, and into the heart of his own guilty conscience.

Half-Blood Blues is an electric, heart-breaking story about music, race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.”

Read more about it here at http://www.esiedugyan.com/half-blood-blues.html