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The 2015 Man Booker longlist – migrants, Bob Marley, but few major names

Written By Unknown on Sunday, August 2, 2015 | 5:18 AM

Sexual abuse and the lives of migrant workers are among the topics tackled on this year’s daring list

Right: first things first. No Franzen, no Rushdie, no Atwood. No wolves (Sarah Hall) or aliens (Michel Faber) or, for that matter, dragons (Kazuo Ishiguro). Now let’s move on: absentees preoccupy those who watch prize lists far more than those who make them, who need to silence the noise of industry hype, review coverage or previous renown. This year, the second in which the Man Booker prize has been open to American writers, the judges have certainly done that; after all, Harper Lee wasn’t on Wednesday’s longlist and a few weeks ago you’d have been forgiven for thinking no other book had ever been published (except for Grey, a few weeks before that).