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The Booker Short List, Minus Sir Salman

by Zoe Strimpel
Tue, 9 Sep 2008 at 5:31 PM

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Shock, horror, gasp! Sir Salman Rushdie, darling of the literary establishment and the crown prince of the Booker Prize, has been snubbed from the short list for ... the Booker Prize. Earlier this year his "Midnight's Children" won the Best of Booker (the book having won the gong nearly 30 years ago). That he has not made it on with "The Enchantress of Florence" is a surprise but a nice one, actually — hinting at less cronyism than one is tempted to attribute to the literary world. Then again — maybe he just pissed off one of the judges.

Instead of Sir Salman, the judges, whose chairman is the notorious politician Michael Portillo, went for work by 33-year-old Aravind Adiga, an Indian journalist; Amitav Ghosh; Linda Grant (long-listed in 2002 and winner of the Orange Prize for fiction), and novice Steve Toltz, 36, an Australian screenwriter. Sebastian Barry and Philip Hensher are also on the list.

Jonathan Ruppin of Foyles Bookshop was quoted in the Times of London as saying, not without a little glee: "The absence of Rushdie means that there will be a new star in the literary firmament."

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