Golden Man Booker Prize: Salman Rushdie and four other Indian-Origin authors in the running

Salman Rushdie and four other Indian-origin authors are in the running for the Golden Man Booker Prize, a special one-off award that is being launched to mark the literary award's 50th anniversary.

Along with Rushdie, four other Indian-origin authors are in the running for this award. They are V.S. Naipaul for In a Free State (1971); Arundhati Roy for The God of Small Things (1997); Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss (2006); and Aravind Adiga for The White Tiger (2008).

The special award will honour the best work of fiction from the last 50 years of the prize, putting all 51 winners back under the spotlight.

All the winning novels from the last five decades will be read by five judges -- writer and editor Robert McCrum; poet Lemn Sissay MBE; novelist Kamila Shamsie; broadcaster and novelist Simon Mayo; and poet Hollie McNish. Each of these judges will choose the best work from one particular decade and try to promote that book against the other judges’ selections.

Their ‘Golden Five’ shortlist will be announced at the Hay Festival on May 26, 2018, after which they will be put on a month-long public vote. The winner will be announced on July 8, 2018.

"The very best fiction endures and resonates with readers long after it is written," Baroness Helena Kennedy, Chair of the Booker Prize Foundation, said in a statement. "I’m fascinated to see what our panel of excellent judges – including writers and poets, broadcasters and editors – and the readers of today make of the winners of the past, as they revisit the rich Man Booker library."

Luke Ellis, CEO of Man Group, added: "We are delighted to be sponsoring the Man Booker Prize in its 50th year and celebrating outstanding fiction from the past half century, which remains as relevant and resonant as ever. The prize plays a meaningful role in recognising and supporting literary excellence that we are honoured to support."