First-time novelist Monica Ali is the bookmakers' favourite to win tonight's Booker Prize.
Her novel Brick Laneis one of six books in the running for the £50,000 sterling award.
Her book tells the story of Nazneen, a young woman transplanted from a Bangladeshi village to an east London tower block following an arranged marriage to a man 20 years her senior.
The other contenders are Oryx and Crakeby Margaret Atwood; Notes On A Scandal,by Zoe Heller; The Good Doctor,by Damon Galgut; Vernon God Little,by DBC Pierre; and Astonishing Splashes of Colour,by Clare Morrall.
Mr Pierre and Ms Morrall have also made the shortlist with their debut novels in what the judges described as the year of the "giant killers".
Ms Atwood, the Canadian writer who won the Booker in 2000 with The Blind Assassin, is the only big-hitter to appear on the list.
This is her 11th novel and is set in a not-too-distant future where genetic engineering and cloning have led to the destruction of the human race.
By contrast Clare Morrall was almost unheard of until Astonishing Splashes of Colourmade it into print. The 51-year-old music teacher had written four other novels, but all had been rejected - and Astonishing Splashes of Colourwas turned down by 33 literary agents.
Her novel chronicles a woman's emotional breakdown after the death of her baby son.
Heller's novel is the tale of a woman teacher who begins an affair with one of her pupils, seen through the eyes of one of her colleagues.
DBC Pierre is the alter ego of Australian cartoonist Peter Finlay (42), the initials standing for Dirty But Clean. His book, Vernon God Littleis the darkly comic tale of a Texan teenager put on trial for a Columbine-style high school massacre.
The last of the six is The Good Doctor, by Damon Galgut, which is set in a rural hospital in the South African homelands where the legacy of apartheid still lingers.
The winner will be announced in a ceremony at the British Museum tonight.
- William Hill odds: Monica Ali 5/4, Margaret Atwood 4/1, Damon Galgut 9/2, DBC Pierre 11/2. Zoe Heller 7/1, Clare Morrall 11/1.
PA