Among a field of largely unknowns, the bookies' favourite to win this year's Man Booker Prize – to be announced in London on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning AEDT) – is firming as Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life.
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Yanagihara's story follows four young men from university to adulthood with a particular focus on the emotional pain of one, lawyer and mathematician Jude St Francis.
The bookies aren't always right, as last year's winner, Australia's Richard Flanagan, can gladly attest.
The other shortlisted titles include The Year of the Runaways the second novel of Sunjeev Sahota, which traces a year in the lives of three Indian migrants finding their way in Sheffield, England.
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James spins out from the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976 into a multi-layered, colourful account of Jamaican politics.
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler is a multi-generational story of the Whitshanks, told as a family gathers to ponder how to care for their ageing parents.
The Fishermen is the first novel of Nigerian-born Chigozie Obioma. Narrated by the youngest of four brothers, it shows the destructive power of a prophecy that foretells the death of one brother by the hand of another.
Satin Island by American Tom McCarthy is an unconventional novel that revolves around a corporate anthropologist named U who has been given the task by his superiors of composing a "great report" to sum up his age.
Go to smh.com.au/entertainment for the announcement of the Booker Prize 2015 winner
