A pair of Canadian authors have been named to the shortlist of the 2011 Man Booker Prize. Victoria’s Esi Edugyan has been nominated for her second novel, Half-Blood Blues, about an interracial troupe of jazz musicians in Nazi-occupied France, alongside B.C.-born Patrick deWitt for his riff on the Western genre, The Sisters Brothers.

Half-Blood Blues is being published in Canada this month by Thomas Allen Publishers, while The Sisters Brothers appeared earlier this year with House of Anansi Press. A second Anansi title, Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, also appears on the six-title shortlist.

The complete shortlist is as follows:

• Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
• Carol Birch, Jamrach’s Menagerie
• Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers
• Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues
• Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English
• A.D. Miller, Snowdrops

The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced Oct. 18. In the meantime, read Q&Q‘s profile of Esi Edugyan by reporter Donna Bailey Nurse.