Reading Matters

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Sarah Waters

Name: Sarah Waters

Date of Birth: 1966.

Nationality: English.

Book on Booker longlist: The Night Watch, which tells the story of four Londoners living in the city during the Blitz.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Peter Carey

Name: Peter Carey

Date of Birth: May 7, 1943.

Nationality: Australian, but lives in New York.

Book on Booker longlist: Theft: A Love Story, which is about the escapades of an artist and his 'damaged' brother living in New South Wales.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Nadine Gordimer

Name: Nadine Gordimer

Date of Birth: November 20, 1923. She is the oldest writer on the longlist.

Nationality: South African.

Book on Booker longlist: Get a Life, which is about an ecologist who is diagnosed with cancer.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Claire Messud

Name: Claire Messud

Date of Birth: 1966.

Nationality: American, but grew up in Australia and Canada.

Book on Booker longlist:  The Emporer's Children, which is about three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, living in New York City in the run-up to 9/11.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Jon McGregor

Name: Jon McGregor

Date of Birth: 1976 (he is the youngest on the Booker longlist)

Nationality: Born in Bermuda, but grew up in England, where he still resides.

Book on Booker longlist:  So Many Ways to Begin, which is about a museum curator who wishes his life was different.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: David Mitchell

Name: David Mitchell

Date of Birth: 1969.

Nationality: English.

Book on Booker longlist: Black Swan Green, which covers 13 months in the life of a teenage boy in rural England in the 1980s.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Naeem Murr

Name: Naeem Murr

Date of Birth: Your guess is as good as mine!

Nationality: English, but lives in America.

Book on Booker longlist: The Perfect Man, a coming-of-age story about an abandoned child who is half Indian, half English.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Mary Lawson

Name: Mary Lawson

Date of Birth: 1946.

Nationality: Canadian, but lives in England.

Book on Booker longlist:  The Other Side of the Bridge, which is about two brothers whose relationship comes undone when a young woman enters their lives.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Andrew O'Hagan

Name: Andrew O'Hagan

Date of Birth: 1968.

Nationality: Scottish.

Book on Booker longlist: Be Near Me, which is about an English priest who takes over a small Scottish parish.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Barry Unsworth

Name: Barry Unsworth

Date of Birth: 1930.

Nationality: English.

Book on Booker longlist: The Ruby in her Navel, which is set in 12th Century Sicily against the backdrop of the Crusades. It tells the story of how the war between Islam and Christendom impinges on the mind and heart of Thurstan, a young Norman and would-be Knight.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: James Lasdun

Name: James Lasdun

Date of Birth: 1958.

Nationality: English, but now lives in the USA.

Book on Booker longlist: Seven Lies, which is a political thriller about a dissident emigre from the former East German republic now living in the States.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Howard Jacobson

Name: Howard Jacobson

Date of Birth: 1942.

Nationality: English.

Book on Booker longlist: Kalooki Nights, which is a black comedy about a cartoonist and his childhood friend.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: James Robertson

Name: James Robertson

Date of Birth: 1958.

Nationality: Scottish.

Book on Booker longlist:  The Testament of Gideon Mack, which is about a minister who doesn't believe in God but claims to have met the Devil.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Kiran Desai

Name: Kiran Desai

Date of Birth: 1971.

Nationality: Indian, but divides her time between India, England and the United States.

Book on Booker longlist: The Inheritance of Loss, which is set in the Himalayas and tells the story of an embittered old judge whose plans to retire in peace are disrupted by the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Hisham Matar

Name: Hisham Matar.

Date of birth: 1970.

Nationality: Anglo-Libyan.

Book on Booker longlist: In the Country of Men, which is about a Libyan childhood under the Gaddafi regime in the 1970s.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Edward St Aubyn

Name: Edward St Aubyn.

Date of Birth: 1960.

Nationality: British.

Book on Booker longlist: Mother’s Milk, which the publisher describes as a black comedy that dissects "the mores of child-rearing, marriage, adultery, and assisted suicide".

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Robert Edric

Name: Robert Edric.

Date of Birth: 1956.

Nationality: British.

Book on Booker longlist: Gathering the Water, which is about a man given the unenviable task  of overseeing the flooding of the Forge Valley, in northern England, and evicting its lingering inhabitants. The story is set in the mid-19th century.

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: Kate Grenville

Name: Kate Grenville.

Date of Birth: 1950.

Nationality: Australian.

Book on Booker longlist: The Secret River, which tells the story of William Thornhill, a convict who starts afresh on the Hawkesbury River where "normal rules don't apply".

The authors behind the 2006 Booker longlist: MJ Hyland

Want to know more about the authors on this year's Booker longlist? Well stay tuned, because over the next couple of weeks I plan on posting small 'fact files' for each of the 19 authors who have been nominated for the £50,000 prize.

Melbourne-based writer MJ Hyland is first cab off the rank...