'Lost Booker' honours authors who 'missed out'

February 02, 2010

Books by Brian Aldiss, Nina Bawden, David Lodge and Mary Renault have been nominated for The Lost Man Booker Prize, unveiled this week.

Among the books being considered are The Hand-Reared Boy by Brian Aldiss, The Birds On The Trees by Nina Bawden, Out Of The Shelter by David Lodge and Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault.

The prize is a one-off event to honour books published in 1970, which missed out on the opportunity to win the Booker Prize.

The Booker Prize ceased to be awarded retrospectively in 1971 and became, as it is today, a prize for the best novel in the year of publication. At the same time, the date on which the award was given moved from April to November. As a result of these changes, there was year's gap in the award, during which a wealth of fiction published in 1970 fell through the net and was never considered for the prize.

Forty years later, a panel of three judges has been appointed to select a shortlist of six novels from the longlist of 22 books made up of titles which would have been eligible and are still in print today. The panel is made up of journalist and critic Rachel Cooke, ITN newsreader Katie Derham and poet and novelist Tobias Hill.

The shortlist will be announced in March 2010 and the overall winner will be announced in May.