LONDON: British-Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid has made it to the shortlist of this year’s Man Booker Prize unveiled on Wednesday.

In the fourth year that the 50,000-pound ($66,400) prize has been open to writers of any nationality, the shortlist is made up of two British and three American writers, besides Mr Hamid.

Two first-time female authors feature on the shortlist which comprises three women and three men including best-selling US writer Paul Auster.

Subjects this year range from the struggle of a family trying to retain its self-sufficiency in rural England to a love story between two refugees fleeing civil war.

Mr Hamid is on the list with Exit West in which refugees can use doors to escape to other parts of the world.

Mr Auster’s 4321 offers four versions of a young man’s life while fellow US author Emily Fridlund’s debut novel History of Wolves is a coming-of-age tale of a teenage girl seeking a place to belong.

Elmet, the first book by British author Fiona Mozley, tells the story of a father and his two children who clash with landowners after they build a home for themselves.

George Saunders’ first novel Lincoln in the Bardo is about Abraham Lincoln and the death of his eleven-year-old son Willie at the dawn of the American Civil War.

Scottish writer Ali Smith is on the shortlist for the fourth time, this year with Autumn, a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive.

The judging panel culled books by several big names from the 13-novel longlist announced in July, including Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by previous Booker winner Arundhati Roy.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2017