London: J.M. Coetzee has been knocked out of the Man Booker Prize, dashing the Australian author's hopes of becoming the first to win the prestigious prize three times.
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The 2016 shortlist, unveiled after a marathon 11-hour selection process last week, heavily favoured Man Booker debutantes with just one of the six authors, Deborah Levy, having been named for the gong before.
British author Deborah Levy's Hot Milk is the favourite to win the £50,000 (A$80,000) prize to be announced on October 25 according to betting markets.
The previously Booker listed novelist is up against fellow British author Graeme Macrae Burnet for His Bloody Project.
American authors Paul Beatty and Ottessa Moshfegh also made the cut for The Sellout and Eileen, respectively.
And Canadians David Szalay and Madeleine Thien are shortlisted for All That Man Is and Do Not Say We Have Nothing.
Judge and literary critic Jon Day told Fairfax Media the shortlist rewarded authors willing to take a risk with their writing but said this did not mean this favoured new writers over established authors.
"You might also say novelists without a reputation are more willing to take those kinds of risks because they're not hamstrung by the sense of a readership," he said.
"I don't think great novelists are ever hamstrung by a sense of the readership but I think it might be the case that from the outside that's how it appears.
"The fact that we want to advocate for these books that might have been overlooked on the literary pages is a pleasing byproduct of the process that we've undergone but it's not ever been a consideration in our conversation."
Adelaide University professor J.M Coetzee, originally from South Africa, was named in July's longlist for The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to ever win the Booker twice and after being named in the longlist was vying to become the first to win it three times.
Chair of the Judges Amanda Foreman said authors who had "reinvented" and pushed the boundaries of fiction writing had been rewarded.
"That is one of our criteria, actually – being innovative, being bold, being courageous, a willingness to take risks," she said.
"That's what really excited us because it shows the artform isn't nostalgic, it's not being held back by some vision of what it used to be and 'that was so much better'."
Day, an author himself, said the 2016 shortlist featured books that were "important" and would last the test of time.
"Having the opportunity to evangelise on behalf of six books to the world at large is a wonderful privilege," he said.
The Man Booker prize shortlist 2016
Paul Beatty (US) The Sellout
Deborah Levy (UK) Hot Milk
Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) His Bloody Project
Ottessa Moshfegh (US) Eileen
David Szalay (Canada-UK) All that Man Is
Madeleine Thien (Canada) Do Not Say We Have Nothing