The novelist Seamus Deane has been shortlisted for the 1996 Guardian Fiction Award, which will be awarded in December. The announcement follows his recent Booker Prize shortlisting.
Mr Deane was nominated for his semi autobiographical work, Reading in the Dark, which tells the story of a working class boy growing up in Derry in the 1950s.
Other candidates for the prize are The Insult, by Rupert Thompson; Asylum, by Patrick McGrath; A Perfect Execution, by Tim Binding; Anita and Me, by Meera Syal; and The Cast Iron Shore, by Linda Grant. The winner receives £3,000.