Aussie writer up for Booker Prize

Two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey is a finalist again for one of literature's most prestigious and contentious awards.

The Australian writer's Parrot and Olivier in America is one of six contenders announced for the £50,000-pound  fiction award.

He's joined by Irish writer Emma Donoghue for "Room," the story of a boy and his mother held captive in a garden shed.

The other finalists are Damon Galgut, Howard Jacobson, Andrea Levy and Tom McCarthy.

The Booker is open to writers from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth of former British colonies.

The winner will be announced October 12.

The Booker was founded in 1969 and is officially called the Man Booker Prize after its sponsor, financial services conglomerate Man Group PLC.

- AP