The veteran Irish writer William Trevor has been short-listed for this year's Booker Prize.
Consummate artistry and a long career graced by a consistent, subtle feel for language, nuance and atmosphere make him a strong contender in what is a good selection.
The six-book short list announced in London yesterday includes Trevor's beautiful period piece, The Story of Lucy Gault, as expected, along with another strong favourite, the Canadian-based Indian writer, Rohinton Mistry, for his rich domestic drama, Family Matters.
This is Trevor's fourth Booker short-listed and the novel, his 13th, which centres on a simple twist of fate, chronicles the passing of a way of life and the decline of a culture, as much as the individual history of the passive eponymous heroine.
Trevor, who was born in Cork in 1928 and settled in Britain almost 50 years ago, has retained an understanding and grasp of Ireland, its cultural subtleties and contrasting traditions from a distance. Long acknowledged as one of the world's finest living writers, much of his intuitive genius lies in his stylistic understatement, his contrasting of the formal with the vernacular, his obvious fascination with the sinister in the ordinary and his belief in lives as lived as the heart of all story.
Despite the absence of John McGahern's That They May Face The Rising Sun and John Banville's Shroud, Irish fiction is well represented by Trevor, who has won many literary awards, including the Whitbread Book of the Year for Felicia's Journey.
Last year The Hill Bachelors, his 10th collection of short stories, won the Irish Times Literature Prize. Trevor is special for many reasons, not least the fact he is a natural short-story writer who also writes superb novels.
Also short-listed in what is a strong list is former Booker runner-up Canadian Carol Shields with Unless; Spanish-born Canadian-based Yann Martel with Life of Pi; the young English writer Sarah Waters with Fingersmith, a curiously modern historical romp set in 19th-century London, and Australian Tim Winton with Dirt Music. Winton was previously short listed in 1995 with The Riders.
In addition to McGahern and Banville, the only other notable exclusions are former Booker winner, Anita Brookner's The Next Big Thing, and Janice Galloway's Clara, based on the life of pianist and composer Clara Schumann.
The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced in London on October 22nd.