A Birmingham lecturer could be in the running to win one of the biggest accolades in literature – the Man Booker Prize.
Dr Richard House is one of just 13 authors on the long-list for the £50,000 prize – after his novel The Kills was described as ‘most intriguing’.
It was also hailed as a first in publishing – a digital novel in four parts all initially released as enhanced e-books.
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The story is packed with audio, visual and web content created by Dr House to support and extend the narrative.
Dr House, an English lecturer at the University of Birmingham, said: “I’m very happy about the longlist. First, it’s a great list, and second, because there was a committed team at Picador who invested in the project early on, so it’s mightily satisfying that this has happened.”
He added: “All of the books are engaging, immersive, so maybe that’s what is being responded to. They’re writers thinking hard about the world, about writing, about subject and craft – as a reader I want to be swallowed by a book, both intellectually and emotionally, maybe even challenged, and a good number of the books on the list do this.”
The Kills is a political thriller which takes place in Iraq at a base which was previously a backwater until plans are announced to transform it into the largest military base in the country.
Dr House said it is a story featuring explosive attacks, a missing 50 million dollars of reconstruction funds and a conspiracy which stretches across the world.
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He said that although his book was digitally innovative, he believed that it was the story which has thus far impressed the judges.
He said: “It’s clear that it’s the words that are being taken into account. The digital side is important, publishing is going to move further into this as an area, so I think there’s some healthy interest in anyone working digitally – and that’s good to see.
“The books were released digitally first, starting in February, one a month. They each have short videos and audio attached, and in one book you can reorganise the material.
“These short pieces give you some information about the characters, but generally don’t develop the plot so you can read the books without worrying that you are missing out on anything. The films and audio are an opportunity to leak the book out into the world a little more, and hopefully, most of them work independently as well.
“In some of them the characters open up about a relationship or an event, in others the film might simply be an animated map. I was also able to play with presentation, so each of the chapters has a small digital ‘heading’, which helps to set a tone, in most cases it’s a landscape.
“They still look like books, and are really very handsome. In one book you can choose to read the material either character by character, or day by day – it’s the same material reorganised, and it’s surprising how different it is.”
He revealed that the digital nature of the books meant thinking beyond normal publishing conventions: “It might look like four books, but there’s something like 40 other short pieces which go alongside the project – getting that together has meant a phenomenal amount of work from the publisher, practical and creative. So it’s deeply satisfying.”
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Robert Macfarlane, this year’s chair of judges, said: “This is surely the most diverse longlist in Man Booker history: wonderfully various in terms of geography, form, length and subject. These 13 outstanding novels range from the traditional to the experimental, from the first century AD to the present day, from 100 pages to 1,000, and from Shanghai to Hendon.”
Only two authors on the list have been nominated for the prize before: Jim Crace is listed for his 11th novel Harvest, 16 years after he was shortlisted for Quarantine; and Colm Tóibín, shortlisted twice before, is in the running for The Testament of Mary, which came out last year.
The shortlist will be announced in September and the winner on October 15.