Atwood, Roth among 15 up for Booker

Novelists Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan were among 15 nominees announced Thursday for the second Booker International Prize for fiction.

Writers from Canada, Britain the United States, Australia, Ireland, France, Israel, Mexico, Nigeria and the Netherlands were shortlisted for the $120,000 award.

Launched in 2004 as a spin-off of Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, the international trophy is awarded every two years to a living author who has published fiction in English or whose work has been translated into English.

While the original Booker is given for a novel, the international prize recognizes a body of work. The original is open only to writers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth of former British colonies.

The contenders announced at a news conference in Toronto include three Canadians _ Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and short-story writer Alice Munro _ and two Americans, Roth and Don DeLillo.

Three Britons were also nominated _ McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Doris Lessing _ along with Nigeria's Chinua Achebe, Ireland's John Banville, Australia's Peter Carey, Mexico's Carlos Fuentes, Israel's Amos Oz, France's Michel Tournier and Dutch writer Harry Mulisch.

The winner will be announced in June.

The judging panel _ academic Elaine Showalter and novelists Nadine Gordimer and Colm Toibin _ said the nominees were "diverse in nationality, language, themes and techniques but united in their dedication to the power of the word."

The inaugural prize for the International Booker was awarded in 2005 to Albanian writer Ismail Kadare. Its official name is the Man Booker International Prize, after its sponsor, financial services conglomerate Man Group PLC.