Hilary Mantel, who won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2009 with historical novel Wolf Hall, is on the shortlist for the coveted award again for her sequel Bring up the Bodies, organisers announced yesterday.

The other five nominees are Will Self (Umbrella), Deborah Levy (Swimming Home), Malaysia’s Tan Twan Eng (The Garden of Evening Mists) and first-time novelists Alison Moore (The Lighthouse) and Indian author Jeet Thayil (Narcopolis).

“We loved the shock of language shown in so many different ways and were exhilarated by the vigour and vividly defined values in the six books that we chose,” said Peter Stothard, chair of the judges and editor of The Times Literary Supplement.

The overall winner will be announced at a ceremony at London’s Guildhall on October 16 and receive a cheque of £50,000 (€39,089) plus a spike in sales that usually accompanies a major literary award.

Last year’s winner, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, sold more than 300,000 print copies in the UK alone.

Of the six shortlisted authors, two have previously been linked to the prize.

Mantel won in 2009 with the first instalment of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy and was long-listed in 2005 for Beyond Black.

Eng was long-listed for the prize in 2007 with his debut novel The Gift of Rain.

The four other novelists including Self, who was described by organisers as a “radical of contemporary literature”, appeared on the list for the first time.

Jonathan Ruppin, web editor at Foyles bookshops, praised the judges’ selection, and added: “One can never discount the consistently brilliant Hilary Mantel, and Will Self has surpassed himself with Umbrella, but I’m tipping Alison Moore’s moody and exquisite The Light-house to pull off a triumph for the dynamic world of indie publishing.”

The prize was launched in 1969 to promote works of fiction written by citizens of the UK, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.