Man Booker Prize 2014 longlist announced, includes British-Indian writer Neel Mukherjee

The Man Booker Prize, a prestigious prize given out each year to the best original novel written in English, announced its longlist today which included British-Indian writer Neel Mukherjee's book The Lives of Others. The plot revolves around a Bengali family in Calcutta - it explores a family that is decaying as the society around it fractures, and one young man who tries to reimagine his place in the world.  

This is the first year that the prize has been opened to writers from across the world. Until last year, the award took under consideration books written only by writers from Britain and Commonwealth countries.

The books in this year's longlist are- 

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris (Viking), 
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (Chatto & Windus), 
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (Serpent's Tail),
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt (Sceptre), 
J by Howard Jacobson (Jonathan Cape), 
The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth (Unbound), 
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (Sceptre), 
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (Chatto & Windus), 
Us by David Nicholls (Hodder & Stoughton), 
The Dog by Joseph O'Neill (Fourth Estate), 
Orfeo by Richard Powers (Atlantic Books), 
How to be Both by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton), 
History of the Rain by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury)

The longlist also includes former winner Howard Jacobson as well as previously shortlisted authors Ali Smith and David Mitchell. 

The judges of the Prize this year are Sarah Churchwell, Daniel Glaser, Jonathan Bate, Alastair Niven and Erica Wagner headed by Anthony Grayling.

The shortlist will be announced on September 9 while the winner will be announced on October 14.