Linda Grant's The Clothes on Their Backs has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008.

One of six books on the shortlist, The Clothes on Their Backs was described by the Evening Standard as 'a novel of big ideas that never forgets to tell a story', and bookmakers immediately installed Linda Grant as third favourite to pick up the award when the longlist of fourteen titles was named in July.

Now in its 40th year, the Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year. The prize is the world's most important literary award, and the 2008 winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in London on October 14th.

Michael Portillo, Chair of judges, commented on the shortlist today:

"The judges commend the six titles to readers with great enthusiasm. These novels are intensely readable, each of them an extraordinary example of imagination and narrative. These fine page-turning stories nonetheless raise highly thought-provoking ideas and issues. These books are in every case both ambitious and approachable."

The Clothes on Their Backs thrilled the UK's reviewers:

'Modest in appearance, Linda Grant’s The Clothes on Their Backs quietly contains tumultuous stories of persecution, migration, social upheaval and moral compromise – much like its secretive characters' Boyd Tonkin – The Independent

'If you read only one novel this year, make sure it is The Clothes on Their Backs' Sunday Express

'Read on one level her story is accessible, her characters neatly sketched. On a deeper level this is a coming-of-age story not only about insecure girls like Vivien, but about Britain in the 1970s, insecure about its evolving racial mix. She is as at home writing about the thrilling ripple of silk as she is charting social tensions. So: Prada or Primark? Rather enticingly, Grant provides the best of both' Sunday Telegraph

'Her heroine, Vivien Kovaks, slightly resembles a rawer, angrier version of one of Anita Brookner's dutiful daughters... such is the richness of Grant's plotting that the story encapsulates many untold narratives' The Times

'Gripping and written with keen understatement, it manages to be a domestic coming-of-age novel... It is, in other words, that rare thing, a novel of big ideas that never forgets to tell a story' Evening Standard

'A meticulously textured and complex novel' Sunday Times

Linda Grant won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002, and is the only female author to make the shortlist in 2008.

Read an extract from The Clothes on Their Backs.

Read Linda's piece on the joy of making the initial longlist on the Man Booker Prize website.