Ali nominated for US book prize

Ali's book was shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize

British writer Monica Ali's Brick Lane has been shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle awards in the US.

It is competing against Caryl Phillips' novel A Distant Shore, The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers, and Tobias Wolff's Old School.

Veteran US historian Studs Terkel, 91, will receive a lifetime achievement prize at the New York awards in March.

The critics circle has 750 members who can nominate any work published in English during the previous year.

Judges have bypassed some of the year's most talked about books, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez's memoir Living to Tell the Tale, and Nobel laureate JM Coetzee's novel Elizabeth Costello.

They have also overlooked The Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling's fifth Harry Potter adventure which is shortlisted for the best fiction prize at the WH Smith Book Awards.