Sarah Waters has today been named as one of the six authors shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

The Little Stranger is Waters’ third novel to be shortlisted for the prize. Fingersmith was nominated in 2002 and The Night Watch in 2006.

The other five shortlisted novels are Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, The Children’s Book by A S Byatt, The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds, The Glass Room by Simon Mawer and Summertime by J M Coetzee, which is favourite to win the £50,000 first place prize money.

“We’re thrilled to be able to announce such a strong shortlist, so enticing that it will certainly give us a headache when we come to select the winner,” commented Chair James Naughtie.

“The choice will be a difficult one. There is thundering narrative, great inventiveness, poetry and sharp human insight in abundance.

“These are six writers on the top of their form. They’ve given us great enjoyment already, and it’s a measure of our confidence in their books that all of us are looking forward to reading them yet again before we decide on the prizewinner. What more could we ask?”

Free audio extracts from all 13 longlisted titles are available from www.themanbookerprize.com/audio.

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