Damon Galgut, Colm Toibin among Folio Prize finalists

Novels by Damon Galgut and Colm Toibin are among eight books contending for Britain’s Rathbones Folio Prize for literature

Britain Folio Prize (AP2010)

Novels by Damon Galgut and Colm Toibin are among eight books contending for Britain’s Rathbones Folio Prize for literature.

Galgut’s Booker Prize-winning South African story “The Promise” and Toibin’s novel about Thomas Mann “The Magician,” were on the shortlist announced Wednesday for the multi-genre 30,000 pound ($41,000) prize.

They are up against four other works of fiction: Natasha Brown’s debut novel “Assembly;” Claire Keegan’s “Small Things Like These;” Gwendoline Riley’s “My Phantoms;” and Sunjeev Sahota’s “China Room.”

Contenders also include Selima Hill’s poetry collection “Men Who Feed Pigeons” and “Albert and the Whale,” Philip Hoare’s nonfiction book about the artist Albrecht Dürer.

The winner, chosen by a jury of three other writers, will be announced on March 23.

Founded in 2013 to rival the prestigious Booker Prize the Folio is open to fiction, nonfiction and poetry from anywhere in the world published in Britain This year’s finalists are from the U.K., Ireland and South Africa.