Booker Prize 2019: Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie both make shortlist

Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption Atwood and Rushdie won the prize in 2000 and 1981 respectively

Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie are among the six authors shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize.

Atwood is in contention again with The Testaments, her eagerly awaited follow-up to The Handmaid's Tale, while Sir Salman makes the cut with Quichotte.

Bernardine Evaristo, Chigozie Obioma, Elif Shafak and US author Lucy Ellmann are also up for the prize.

Both Atwood and Rushdie have won the coveted prize before, in 2000 and 1981 respectively.

Atwood also made the shortlist with The Handmaid's Tale in 1986.

The Testaments, which is set 15 years after the end of that novel, will be officially published next week.

The winner, whittled down from 151 submissions and a longlist of 13, will be announced on 14 October.

The 2019 shortlist was announced on Tuesday at a press conference at the British Library in London.

"Like all great literature, these books teem with life, with a profound and celebratory humanity," said Peter Florence, chair of this year's judges.

The shortlist in full:

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