Self, Amis, Faber among 80 Folio Prize nominees

The Folio Prize has revealed the 80 books put forward for consideration for the 2015 award.

The books have been nominated by the 235 writers and critics of the Folio Prize Academy, and include the 2014 Man Booker Prize winner The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (Chatto & Windus). Also on the list are this year’s Man Booker Prize shortlisted How to be Both by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton), J by Howard Jacobson (Jonathan Cape), The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (Chatto & Windus), and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris (Viking).

But other notable names on the list include Will Self for Shark (Viking), Martin Amis for The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Cape), Michel Faber for The Book of Strange New Things (Canongate), and Edward St Aubyn for Lost for Words (Picador).

Chair of judges William Fiennes said: "The list of nominations for this year's Folio Prize is both daunting and exhilarating. It's not just that the list has such range and richness. Reading the books, it's as if we're eavesdropping on a marvellous conversation about what a novel is and might be."

Andrew Kidd, founder of The Folio Prize, which is in its second year, said: "We are delighted to announce this list of nominations from The Folio Prize Academy. The Folio Prize seeks to recognise and reward excellence, and the judges now have the exciting task of creating a shortlist from this selection of 80 outstanding books."

The shortlist of eight titles will be announced on 9th February, and the winner of The Folio Prize will be announced on Monday 23rd March at a ceremony at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in central London.

The inaugural prize was awarded to the American writer George Saunders for his widely acclaimed collection of short stories, Tenth of December (Bloomsbury).
 
The 80 books nominated by The Folio Prize Academy this year are:

10:04, Ben Lerner (Granta)
A God in Every Stone, Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Academy Street, Mary Costello (Canongate)
After Me Comes the Flood, Sarah Perry (Serpent's Tail)
All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews (Faber & Faber)
All Our Names, Dinaw Mengitsu (Sceptre)
All the Days And Nights, Niven Govinden (The Friday Project)
All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (4th Estate)
All the Rage, Al Kennedy (Jonathan Cape)
Amnesia, Peter Carey (Faber & Faber)
Annihilation, Jeff Vandemeer (4th Estate)
Arctic Summer, Damon Galgut (Atlantic Books)
Bald New World, Peter Tieryas Liu (John Hunt Publishing)
Bark, Lorrie Moore (Faber & Faber)
Be Safe I Love You, Cara Hoffman (Virago)
Boy, Snow, Bird, Helen Oyeyemi (Picador)
Can't & Won't, Lydia Davis (Hamish Hamilton)
Dear Thief, Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape)
Dept. Of Speculation, Jenny Offill (Granta)
Dissident Gardens, Jonathan Lethem (Jonathan Cape)
Dust, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Granta)
Em And The Big Hoom, Jerry Pinto (Viking)
England and Other Stories, Graham Swift (Simon & Schuster)
Euphoria, Lily King (Picador)
Everland, Rebecca Hunt (Fig Tree)
Eyrie, Tim Winton (Picador)
Family Life, Akhil Sharma (Faber & Faber)
Fourth Of July Creek, Smith Henderson (William Heinemann)
How To Be Both, Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
In Search Of Silence, Emily Mackie (Sceptre)
In the Approaches, Nicola Barker (4th Estate)
In the Light of What We Know, Zia Haider Rahman (Picador)
J, Howard Jacobson (Jonathan Cape)
Kinder Than Solitude, Yiyun Li (4th Estate)
Lila, Marilynne Robinson (Virago)
Life Drawing, Robin Black (Picador)
Lost For Words, Edward St Aubyn (Picador)
Love and Treasure, Ayelet Waldman (Two Roads)
Nora Webster, Colm Toibin (Viking)
On Such A Full Sea, Chang-Rae Lee (Little, Brown)
Orfeo, Richard Powers (Atlantic Books)
Outline, Rachel Cusk (Faber & Faber)
Perfidia, James Ellroy (William Heinemann)
Road Ends, Mary Lawson (Chatto & Windus)
Shark, Will Self (Viking)
Some Luck, Jane Smiley (Mantle)
Stay Up With Me, Tom Barbash (Simon & Schuster)
Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury Publishing)
The Ballad Of a Small Player, Lawrence Osborne (The Hogarth Press)
The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell (Sceptre)
The Book of Gold Leaves, Mirza Waheed (Penguin)
The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber (Canongate)
The Country Of Icecream Star, Sandra Newman (Chatto & Windus)
The Dog, Joseph O'neill (4th Estate)
The Fever, Megan Abbott (Picador)
The Heroes' Welcome, Louisa Young (Harper Collins)
The Incarnations, Susan Barker (Doubleday)
The Lie, Helen Dunmore (Hutchinson)
The Lives of Others, Neel Mukherjee (Chatto & Windus)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan (Chatto & Windus)
The Night Guest, Fiona Mcfarlane (Sceptre)
The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters (Virago)
The Tell-Tale Heart, Jill Dawson (Sceptre)
The Temporary Gentleman, Sebastain Barry (Faber & Faber)
The Wake, Paul Kingsnorth (Unbound)
The Zone Of Interest, Martin Amis (Jonathan Cape)
Their Lips Talk Of Mischief, Alan Warner (Faber & Faber)
Thunderstruck, Elizabeth Mccracken (Jonthan Cape)
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, Joshua Ferris (Viking)
Travelling Sprinkler, Nicholson Baker (Serpent's Tail)
Upstairs At The Party, Linda Grant (Virago)
Viper Wine, Hermione Eyre (Jonathan Cape)
Virginia Woolf In Manhattan, Maggie Gee (Telegram Books)
We Are Not Ourselves, Thomas Matthew (4th Estate)
What You Want, Constantine Phipps (Quercus)
Wittgenstein Jr, Lars Iyer (Melville House)
Young Skins, Colin Barrett (Jonathan Cape)
Your Fathers, Where Are They?..., Dave Eggers (Hamish Hamilton)