US authors Strout, Everett among Booker Prize finalists

LONDON (AP) — American authors Elizabeth Strout and Percival Everett are up against writers from Britain, Ireland, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka as finalists for the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction. Strout’s symphony of everyday lives “Oh William!” and Everett’s powerful novel about racism and police violence, “The Trees,” are on the prize’s shortlist announced Tuesday. The other contenders include Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo for “Glory”; Irish writer Claire Keegan’s “Small Things Like These”; and “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” by Sri Lanka’s Shehan Karunatilaka. British fantasy author Alan Garner — the oldest-ever Booker nominee at 87 — is on the list for “Treacle Walker.” The winner will be crowned Oct. 17 at a ceremony in London.