The Man Booker Prize announced their longlist this morning. The criteria changed last year to be open to international authors writing in English; up until last year, it was solely a prize for writers from the UK commonwealth, Ireland, and Zimbabwe. The longlist is:

Bill Clegg (US) - Did You Ever Have a Family

Anne Enright (Ireland) - The Green Road

Marlon James (Jamaica) - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Laila Lalami (US) - The Moor's Account

Tom McCarthy (UK) - Satin Island

Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) - The Fishermen

Andrew O’Hagan (UK) - The Illuminations

Marilynne Robinson (US) - Lila

Anuradha Roy (India) - Sleeping on Jupiter

Sunjeev Sahota (UK) - The Year of the Runaways

Anna Smaill (New Zealand) - The Chimes

Anne Tyler (US) - A Spool of Blue Thread

Hanya Yanagihara (US) - A Little Life

The shortlist of six authors will be announced on September 15th, and the winner will be announced on October 13th.

Literary awards are fun, silly things. They don't make a book any better or worse, but they do generally help get books in the hands of more readers, which is always a good thing. The Seattle Review of Books is rooting for Laila Lalami.