Two Britons named on 'diverse' Booker Prize shortlist

The finalists for the Man Booker Prize 2015 have been named, with the judges describing the line-up as a diverse and experimental list.

Two Britons are up for the award - Tom McCarthy for Satin Island and Sunjeev Sahota for The Year Of The Runaways.

Jamaican Marlon James was also named for A Brief History Of Seven Killers, along with a Nigerian, Chigozie Obioma, for The Fisherman and two Americans, Anne Tyler for A Spool Of Blue Thread and Hanya Yanagihara for A Little Life.

They made the final cut after the 13-strong longlist was whittled down to six books.

Revealing the finalists at a central London press conference, Michael Wood, chairman of the judging panel, said: "We are delighted by the diversity of the list."

Mr Wood described the discussions to cut the list from 13 as "violent but friendly", adding that it took a morning and an afternoon to make the decision. The judging panel did not vote but agreed on the final list.

Mr Wood said: "We reread all 13 books on the longlist and in the process we rediscovered new pleasures in each.

"The writers on the shortlist present an extraordinary range of approaches to fiction. They come from very different cultures and are themselves at very different stages of their careers."

This is the second year the prize, billed as "fiction at its finest", has been open to writers of any nationality writing in English and published in the UK.

It was previously been restricted to the UK, the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe.

The longlist was picked by the judges from 156 books.

Winning the prize provides a guaranteed boost to sales, with last year's winner, The Narrow Road To The Deep North by Richard Flanagan, selling almost 800,000 copies.