Rookie writer beats Tony Morrison

Debut British novelist beats Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison for the shortlist of the 2009 Orange prize for fiction. Samantha Harvey's Wilderness was selected over Morrison's 17th century slave trade novel A Mercy. Harvey's novel recounts the story through the mind of an old man, who is struggling not to let Alzheimer's take hold of his mind. Also on the shortlist are Ellen Feldman for Scottsboro, Marilynne Robinson for Home, Samantha Hunt with The Invention of Everything Else, Deidre Madden for Molly Fox's Birthday and Kamila Shamsie for Burnt Shadows. "We were right down to the wire on several of the books and choosing just six was far harder than I had imagined, but we all left the judging room proud of the list we have chosen," the Guardian quoted the chair of judges, broadcaster Fi Glover as saying. The winner, who will be announced on 3 June, will receive £30,000 and a bronze statue known as the Bessie which was created by artist Grizel Niven, sister of British actor and writer David Niven. The annual Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction is one of Britain's most prestigious literary awardss, which is given to the best original full-length novel by a female author of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK in the preceding year.