The longlist for the Man Booker Prize 2019 has been announced today, with 13 titles vying for literature's most coveted prize.

Among them is Kevin Barry, the Limerick author who was lauded as one of Ireland's most original writers following the release of his 2011 debut novel, City of Bohane.

He then followed this up with the short story collection Dark Lies The Island the equally brilliant second novel Beatlebone.

Barry's newest novel, Night Boat To Tanjier, tells the story of two Irish gangsters ruminating over their pasts and on the cost of crime to the soul, as they wait for - you guessed - a boat to Tanjier.

The novel was praised in the literature section of Hot Press, with Pat Carty writing:

"His gifts would make anyone who has ever even held a pen tremble with envy, whether it be the character’s dialogues, his descriptive powers, or just phrases like “There is a stab of awareness at the beginning and end of love” or “The same as each or any of us is made of, all the words we have whispered in the night, and all the promises betrayed.” There is poetry in this prose. A great writer doing some great writing."

The longlist also features past winners Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood (whose long-awaited follow-up to The Handmaid's Tale is out in September).

Other writers included in the list are: Lucy Ellman, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Bernandine Evaristo, John Lanchester, Deborah Levy, Valeria Luiselli, Chicozie Obioma, Max Porter, Janette Winterson and Elif Shafak.

Last year's winner was Belfast author Anna Burns, who won with her novel Milkman, about a young woman living in north Belfast through the Troubles.

Read Stuart Clark's full extended interview with Kevin Barry from last month's Hot Press, here: www.hotpress.com

The 2019 Booker Prize longlist has been announced. Watch what our judges had to say and read more here: https://t.co/BgLFiyaEbc#BookerPrize2019 #FinestFiction pic.twitter.com/gi1Xx6oe8h

— The Booker Prizes (@TheBookerPrizes) July 23, 2019