海角大神

The longlist for the Man Booker Prize is out and Americans dominate the list.

It is the second year that what has been called the world's most prestigious fiction prize is open to American writers. Already five of them appear : Laila Lalami ("The Moor's Account"); Bill Clegg聽("Did You Ever Have a Family");聽Marilynne Robinson ("Lila");聽Anne Tyler ("A Spool of Blue Thread"); and聽Hanya Yanagihara ("A Little Life").

The list includes three British authors: Sunjeev Sahota ("The Year of the Runaways"), Tom McCarthy ("Satin Island"), and Andrew O鈥橦agen ("The Illuminations"). McCarthy and O'Hagen have appeared on the shortlist before.

The 2007 Man Booker Prize winner Anne Enright is also on the list with "The Green Road" as well as two debut novelists,聽 from Nigeria with "The Fishermen" and from New Zealand with "The Chimes."

The shortlist of six books will be announced on September 15.

Since 2014, Man Booker Prize has been open to all writers in the English language who is published in the UK, regardless of country of origin. The decision, which was made in 2013, sparked criticism among those in favor of the prize being only open for British, Irish, and Commonwealth authors published in the UK.

鈥淚t鈥檚 rather like a British company being taken over by some worldwide conglomerate,鈥� Melvyn Bragg, an author and television host in Britain,聽 in September 2013.

Around the same time, Philip Hensher, English novelist and author of nine novels, :

No writer embarks on a career with any illusions that the world owes them a living. But I don't think I've ever heard so many novelists say, as over the last two or three days, "Well, we might as well just give up, then."

The Australian writer Peter Carey, who won the Booker prize twice, that the previous Booker Prize had a 鈥渁 real Commonwealth culture鈥� that would now be lost. 鈥淭he old Booker had a particular cultural flavour,鈥� he explained. 鈥淭he Pulitzer and the National Book awards have their sorts of flavours. I suppose I鈥檓 not generally in love with the notion of global marketing.鈥�

Some of those opposed to the expansion of Man Booker Prize say American novelists already get enough recognition.

Susanna Rustin from The Guardian noted in October 2014 that the globalization of the prize . 鈥淎merican publishing already has, in the Pulitzers and National Book Critics Circle, internationally prestigious awards,鈥� she argued. 鈥淭he danger for books by unknown writers who come from and write about less familiar places is that they never find a toehold in the marketplace.鈥�

But there are those who think the problem is not American inclusion, but the reappearing of the same names on the Booker Prize list.

鈥淚t鈥檚 been depressing to see the same bunch of predictable, predominantly English novelists nominated time and again: Carey, McEwan, Byatt, Barnes,鈥� Colin Dickey, an American author, . 鈥淲hat I learned from the Booker Prize so many years ago was that what mattered in a novel was a writer鈥檚 singularity of voice and vision, not country of origin. So if it takes looking to the United States to find the next Keri Hulme, I鈥檓 all for it.鈥�

And Gaby Wood wrote in September 2013 聽that there is nothing to fear. 鈥淭he work now being produced by those already eligible for the Man Booker easily stands up against the work of their American contemporaries,鈥� she said.

But Ms. Wood鈥檚 explanation was followed with a question as well: 鈥淲hy shouldn鈥檛 Britons then be eligible for American prizes?鈥�