The Man Booker Prize

What’s the worst thing that could happen to Salman Rushdie, you might ask? Fatwa? Ex-wife Padma Lakshmi becoming host of the reality TV show “Top Chef?” Well, this year poor Salman got dissed by the Booker Prize judges. His new novel, The Enchantress of Florence, made the longlist, but failed to make the cut onto the shortlist of six titles.

Here are the Gang of Six shortlisted titles for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2008:

The White Tiger by Madras-born Aravind Adiga

A Fraction of the Whole by Australian Steve Toltz

The Secret Scripture by Ireland’s Sebastian Barry

Sea of Poppies by Indian-born New Yorker Amitav Ghosh (U.S. pub. date Oct. 14)

The Clothes of Their Backs by Londoner Linda Grant (no U.S. pub. date yet)

The Northern Clemency by English writer Philip Hensher (U.S. pub. date Feb. 26, 2009)

The bookies’ 2/1 favorite so far? The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. The winner of the 50,000 pound prize will be announced October 14.

For those of you not in the know, the Man Booker Prize is awarded annually for best original full-length novel to a writer from a British Commonwealth country.