London - Celebrated South African novelist JM Coetzee and US Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout are among the contenders for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.
Coetzee's The Schooldays of Jesus and Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton are on a 13-book longlist announced on Wednesday.
The list includes four first-time novelists — David Means, Wyl Menmuir, Otessa Moshfegh and Virginia Reeves — alongside established authors such as AK Kennedy and Deborah Levy.
The list includes five American authors. Previously open to writers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, the Booker expanded in 2014 to include all English-language authors. Despite fears of US dominance, there has not yet been an American winner.
Six finalists will be announced on 13 September and the winner of the 50 000 pound ($65 000) prize will be named 25 October.
Coetzee was the first writer to be awarded the Booker Prize twice, for his books Life & Times of Michael K in 1983, and for Disgrace in 1999.