LONDON, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Eighteen writers are contenders for a Booker Prize for the world's greatest living novelist, it was announced in London.
Financed by Booker McConnell, the Booker Prize is awarded annually for the best full-length novel in the British Commonwealth, but the "super" Booker prize has been opened to all writers, reported the Daily Telegraph Saturday.
British novelists Ian McEwan, who wrote "First Love, Last Rites;" "Children of Violence," author Doris Lessing and Muriel Spark, best known for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" have been nominated.
U.S. writer Philip Roth, who wrote "Goodbye Columbus" and "Portnoy's Complaint," is considered a favorite for the prize that includes a cash award of more than $113,000. Fellow Americans Cynthia Ozick and John Updike also made the list, along with Canadians Saul Bellow and Margaret Atwood as well as Czech Republic writer Milan Kundera.
