'Golden' Man Booker Prize shortlist announced

The shortlist for the Golden Man Booker Prize was announced on Saturday, with one book from each decades of the award's existence selected to compete for the title of greatest-ever winner.

Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul's In A Free State is the oldest nominee, having won just two years after the prize's inception in 1969. As was often the case with the Indian-Trinidadian writer's work, the book explores the challenges faced by the Indian diaspora  around the world, as well as the tension between colonial powers and native residents under shifting power structures.

Read more: Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk wins Man Booker International Prize for translated novel 'Flights'

Also nominated is Penelope Lively's 1987 novel Moon Tiger, a sprawling family saga set in and around World War II and highlights the struggles of trying to be an independent woman amidst a nascent feminist movement.

Canada's Michael Ondaatje is also on the shortlist for a World War II tale, 1992's intricately layered romance The English Patient.

Hillary Mantel's Tudor tale Wolf Hall, the 2009 winner, was selected as well. The first in a trilogy, it documents a fictionalized rise of Thomas Cromwell, who was chief minister to King Henry VIII for eight years and was one of the most powerful advocates of the English Reformation.

Another historical novel, George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo, is the final nominee. Saunders is the only US author on the list, as the Booker Prize was open only to British, Irish, and Commonwealth writers until 2014.

Unlike the annual Booker selection, however, this special prize will be open to a public vote and not selected by a panel of industry insiders.