The Booker Prize is for authors of full-length novels from Britain, the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland. Last year's winner was South African author J.M. Coetzee for Disgrace.
A total of 120 books were submitted in April for the judges' consideration.
The shortlist is:
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury, £16.99), The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi (Picador, £14.99), The Keepers of Truth by Michael Collins (Phoenix House, £16.99), When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber & Faber, £16.99), English Passengers by Matthew Kneale (Hamish Hamilton, £15.99), The Deposition Of Father McGreevy by Brian O'Doherty (Arcadia, £11.99).
The winner will be announced at a dinner in London on November 7th.
The Booker Prize, now in its 32nd year, guarantees short listed writers £1,000 sterling with the overall winner receiving £21,000.
This year's panel of judges is chaired by journalist Simon Jenkins, former editor of the Times and Evening Standard newspapers. The other judges are Dr Roy Foster, professor of Irish history at Oxford University, Mariella Frostrup, writer and broadcaster, Caroline Gascoigne, literary editor of the Sunday Times, and best-selling author Rose Tremain, whose book Restoration was short-listed in 1989.