The Australian novelist Peter Carey was hailed as a modern day Dickens after he was shortlisted for what could be an unprecedented third ManBooker prize victory.
The New York-based Carey was shortlisted for Parrot and Olivier in America, his sprawling, funny account of a French aristocrat and his English servant's picaresque journey to 19th century America. If it wins, Carey will become the first ever three-time winner.
But there was no place for David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, or for Christos Tsiolkas, writer of one of the year's most controversial book, The Slap.
Announcing the shortlist poet Andrew Motion - who chairs the judging panel this year - said of Carey: "He is an extraordinarily clever, able writer. He is one of the writers, speaking personally, that I feel most pleased to be alive at the same as. It is like being alive at the time Dickens was writing, I think he's that good, and I think this novel is right up there with the best of his books. It is an amazingly ambitious, ingenious, clever, wonderful book."
The Canada-based Irish writer Emma Donoghue was shortlisted for Room, a story of a boy and his mother imprisoned in a tiny room for years, as were Orange prize winner Andrea Levy for The Long Song, about the last years of slavery in Jamaica and Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question, a comedy about grief and Anglo-Jewishness. The list was completed by Tom McCarthy's experimental novel C, which tells the story of Serge Carrefax, a first world war radio operator who escapes from a German prison camp, and South African writer Damon Galgut's In a Strange Room, three stories of a man travelling in Greece, India and Africa.
But the omissions will attract almost as much comment as those that were included. Tsolkias's book, for example, which follows the consequences of a young child being slapped at a Melbourne barbecue, has divided readers.
One reviewer called it "unbelievably misogynistic" while Newsnight Review condemned it as little more than soap opera. Others have praised it as "riveting from beginning to end".
Motion said the row had had no bearing on the decision not to shortlist The Slap and re-reading it had made him think what "a bizarre fuss" there had been. It was "naive", he said, to label the writer misogynistic because he was writing a novel that had misogynistic characters.
The other surprise was the omission of Mitchell, who was shortlisted in 2001 and 2004. Motion said that while he was a huge admirer of Mitchell, this novel was simply not "as strikingly done as his previous books".
The judges first began by reading 136 books, Motion revealed, and two of those included on the shortlist had been "called in" - not having been submitted by their publishers - though Motion declined to say which they were.
Ladbroke's put Donoghue as 9-4 favourite, followed by Carey at 5-2. The outsider is Jacobson at 6-1.
Motion called The Finkler Question "absolutely one of his best books", adding: "It's very funny, it's very well-paced and it is about important things including the question of Jewishness and what sort of behaviour it both licenses and prohibits."
Of Levy's The Long Song, Motion said: "It is an extraordinarily ambitious rewriting of a historical story which has been approached by a number of distinguished writers including Toni Morrison. I thought this was … at least as good, if not better than Morrison's take."
McCarthy's C was "a book of outstanding range, ambition, narrative excitement and with a very interesting central thing for everyone to think about".
There is an argument that Galgut's book is not a novel, although Motion said he was happy for it to compete as one. "[Galgut] has rather languished in JM Coetzee's shadow, but that's a very long and interesting shadow to languish in."
The judges took two-and-a-half hours to cut the list from 13 to six.
Discussions were "friendly and passionate", said Motion. "There was no blood on the floor."
Jonathan Ruppin at Foyles praised all six books for their "lightness of touch, which means the reader doesn't get bogged down in something worthy or dull" but said that omission of both Mitchell and Tsiolkas was "a real shock". Simon Burke of Waterstone's tipped C to take the prize, calling it "a challenging yet dazzling novel", adding: "The news that David Mitchell has not made the shortlist will cause gnashing of teeth across the book world, but perhaps is a useful reminder of the independence and unpredictability of the Booker. This is still a hugely varied and exciting list. Our money is on Tom McCarthy. The more people that read [C] the better."
Bookmakers William Hill agreed, putting McCarthy as 2-1 favourite.
The winner will be announced on 12 October by a panel that also includes journalists Rosie Blau and Tom Sutcliffe, dancer Deborah Bull and author Frances Wilson. Last year's winner Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is the fastest-selling Booker winner, with UK sales of around 500,000 copies to date.
To buy all six Booker shortlisted titles for only £65 (save £37.94) with free UK p&p visit the Guardian Bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.
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