Indian poet-writer Jeet Thayil’s debut novel Narcopolis, about opium dens and heroin addiction in Mumbai, was on Wednesday longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, ending a long absence of Indian writers.
In 2008, Aravind Adiga had won the prize for his debut novel The White Tiger. That year Amitav Ghosh and Sir Salman Rushdie had also made it to the longlist. But for three years, from 2009 to 2011, no Indian novel had been chosen for the Booker longlist.
The 12-book longlist, chosen by a five-member jury headed by Times Literary Supplement editor Sir Peter Stothard, was selected from a total of 145 titles, 11 of which were called in by the judges.
The longlist includes Booker winner Hilary Mantel, who won the award in 2009 for Wolf Hall. This time she has been nominated for that novel’s sequel Bring Up the Bodies.