The shortlist for the Booker Prize has been announced with no place for the bookies' favourite Dame Beryl Bainbridge.
The author, who has been shortlisted five times previously for the award but has never won, will not be among the six writers who stand a chance of collecting the £21,000 prize.
The six books named by the judging panel in the shortlist for 2001 were: True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey; Atonement by Ian McEwan; Oxygen by Andrew Miller; Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell; The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert and Hotel World by Ali Smith.
The shortlist features two previous winners of the Booker Prize, Peter Carey, whose novel Oscar and Lucinda won in 1988, and Ian McEwan who took the prize in 1998 with Amsterdam. The list contains one first time novelist, Rachel Seiffert, for her book The Dark Room.
