Finalists announced for British book prize

EDINBURGH, Scotland, May 1 (UPI) -- "Saturday," a novel by Ian McEwan, has been selected as a finalist for Britain's oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

McEwan is competing in the fiction category against Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go"; Joyce Carol Oates' "Mother, Maybe"; Andre Brink's "Praying Mantis"; Uzodinma Iweala's "Beasts of No Nation"; and Ali Smith's "The Accidental," the BBC reported Monday.

Nominated in the biography category are "Siegfried Sassoon: A Life" by Max Egremont; "Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce" by Nigel Farndale; "The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson" by Roger Knight; "Stuart: A Life Backwards" by Alexander Masters; "A Life in Pursuit of Freedom" by Roger Pearson; and "Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream" by Sue Prideaux.

A panel from the University of Edinburgh's English Literature department selected the nominees. The winner in each category will announced next month and receive 10,000 pounds ($18,253).