Booker Prize winners Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood are contenders again for coveted trophy

LONDON (AP): Booker Prize winners Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood are contenders again for the coveted fiction trophy.

Rushdie, who won in 1981 for Midnight's Children, makes the 13-book longlist for his latest novel, Quichotte. 

Atwood won in 2000 for The Blind Assassin and is nominated for The Testaments, a follow-up to The Handmaid's Tale.

The eight women and five men on the list announced Wednesday include Britain's Max Porter for Lanny; Nigerian-British writer Oyinkan Braithwaite for My Sister, the Serial Killer; British-Turkish author Elif Shafak for 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World; and Lucy Ellmann, the only American finalist, for Ducks, Newburyport.

Founded in 1969, the 50,000-pound ($67,000) prize is open to English-language authors from around the world.

Six finalists will be announced Sept 3, with the winner revealed Oct 14.