Atwood won the Booker in 2000
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Literary heavyweights Martin Amis and Margaret Atwood are leading the 23-strong longlist for this year's prestigious Booker prize.
Amis has been shortlisted for his novel Yellow Dog - not published for three weeks - while Atwood is recognised for her Orwellian tale Oryx and Crake.
Big-name authors such as JM Coetzee and Graham Swift have also been selected, despite speculation that top literary stars would miss out.
The 2003 Booker longlist in full
The longlist also includes rising talent such as Monica Ali, whose debut novel Brick Lane, about life in East London, has been widely praised.
Last year, Yann Martel won the prize for his novel The Life of Pi.
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Booker prize-winner odds
J M Coetzee - 6/1 favourite
Martin Amis and Melvyn Bragg - joint 8/1
Margaret Atwood and Graham Swift - 10/1
Monica Ali; Carol Birch; Zoe Heller; Tim Parks; Caryl Phillips - 14/1
Barbara Gowdy; Shena Mackay; Julie Myerson - 16/1
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A shortlist for the 2003 prize will be announced on 16 September.
The winner of the £50,000 award will be announced on 14 October at a ceremony in London, which will be broadcast on BBC Four.
The longlist of 23 books was chosen from 117 entries.
Chair of judges, Professor John Carey, said: "This is a strong and diverse longlist, with a pleasing component of new names.
"It reflects the passionate preferences of the individual judges, and it will be very tough reducing it to a shortlist."
Of the 23, debut novelist Gerard Donovan is better-known as a poet, while other first-time novelists are Mark Haddon and DCB Pierre, whose Vernon God Little satirises American gun culture.
Zöe Heller is recognised for her second novel
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Amis' novel, centred on a father who suffers a personality transformation after being attacked, is his first full work of fiction since 1995's The Information.
But it has been described as "terrible" and "all over the place" in the press.
Former newspaper columnist Zöe Heller makes the longlist for her second novel Notes on a Scandal, about a teacher who has an affair with a 15-year-old boy.
Coetzee has won the Booker twice before, while Atwood and Swift are both recent winners.
This year, Coetzee is listed for a book that picks up the story of novelist Elizabeth Costello, the character featured in his previous book The Lives of Animals.
And Swift's The Light of Day has been described as "an intense, noirish meditation on love and murder" by one critic.
Amis' book is not yet published
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Also on the shortlist is Caryl Phillips, for A Distant Shore.
Phillips' selection confirms the promise he first showed when named as the Sunday Times Writer of the Year in 1992 and selected for the 1993 Granta list of the Best of Young British Writers.
Melvyn Bragg also makes the longlist once more, for his 20th novel Crossing the Lines.
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Booker prize nominees longlist
Monica Ali for Brick Lane
Martin Amis for Yellow Dog
Margaret Atwood for Oryx and Crake
Carol Birch for Turn Again Home
Melvyn Bragg for Crossing the Lines
JM Coetzee for Elizabeth Costello
Julia Darling for The Taxi Driver's Daughter
Gerard Donovan for Schopenhauer's Telescope
Damon Galgut for The Good Doctor
Barbara Gowdy for The Romantic
Mark Haddon for The Curious Incident
of the Dog in the Night-time
Zoë Heller for Notes on a Scandal
Francis King for The Nick of Time
Shena Mackay for Heligoland
Clare Morrall for Astonishing Splashes Of Colour
John Murray for Jazz etc
Julie Myerson for Something Might Happen
Tim Parks for Judge Savage
Caryl Phillips for A Distant Shore
DCB Pierre for Vernon God Little
Jonathan Raban for Waxwings
Graham Swift for The Light of Day
Barbara Trapido for Frankie & Stankie