Judges for the Booker Prize announced the six novels on their shortlist Tuesday, including three by Americans: Susan Choi, Katie Kitamura and Ben Markovits.

As a starting point to determine the 13 books that would be named to the longlist, the judges color-coded their assessments of the 153 submitted titles, explained novelist Roddy Doyle, the panel’s chair: “green for a book we thought was really good, amber for a book we thought was worth discussing and red for a book that we didn’t rate.” In the rare instances when he green-lit a book only to see four reds next to it on the spreadsheet, Doyle joked, “I certainly went out into the back garden and screamed my disgust.”

The meeting to finalize the shortlist was “much more intense” than their previous discussions, he added. “And at first

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