Friday, September 9 2005 09:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: The six books short-listed to win the prestigious Booker Prize were announced yesterday (Sept 8, 2005), with Julian Barnes, Kazuo Ishiguro and Zadie Smith making the cut.

But former winners Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and JM Coetzee were left out of the running for the 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

Barnes, the current favourite to scoop the annual award, made the shortlist with his novel 'Arthur and George'.

Culled from a long list of 17, it was third time lucky for Smith and her novel 'On Beauty'. Her two previous books, 'White Teeth' and 'Autograph Man', failed to progress beyond the long list.

Of the former winners, only 1989 winner Ishiguro was short listed this time for 'Never Let Me Go'.

Rushdie's novel 'Shalimar the Clown', about a Kashmiri boy who becomes an Islamic terrorist, McEwan's 'Saturday' or Coetzee's 'Slow Man' all missed the cut.

'The Accidental' by Ali Smith, John Banville's 'The Sea' and 'A Long Long Way' by Sebastian Barry were the other novels left the running.

Chair of the judges John Sutherland said the long list was 'extraordinarily strong' and some good books had narrowly missed the cut.

"The strength of the year's competition can be measured by the fact that three good books by previous Man Booker winners were finally not selected", he said.

The judges felt choosing the shortlist was unusually difficult this year and thought there was sufficient quality for two distinguished lists.