Booker author defies cancer with new book

Carol Shields, the Booker-nominated author who predicted she would never write another novel after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, has begun work on a new book.

The Canadian writer, who was given months to live after the return of the disease last year, will learn on Tuesday if Unless, the novel she vowed would be her last, has won the £50,000 literary prize.

Now it has emerged that, against all expectations, she is already part-way through a further work.

Mrs Shields' determination to return to writing in defiance of her rapidly failing health has surprised and delighted her friends and family. While working on the later stages of Unless, she insisted that it would be her final book, and in various interviews since then she has repeated the same assertion.

In recent months, the 67-year-old writer is understood to have become prone to coughing fits and prolonged bouts of extreme fatigue. But a close friend of Mrs Shields has revealed that she has continued writing. Expressing his admiration for her stubbornness in the face of her worsening symptoms, he said last night: "Everybody believed she would be lucky to see the publication of this one, which was in April."

A spokeswoman for 4th Estate, Mrs Shields' publisher, confirmed she was making steady progress on another book. "When we last saw Carol in Britain, at the Edinburgh Book Festival two years ago, she stated that Unless would be her last novel, absolutely without question," she said. "But she is now writing again. What will happen exactly, who knows, and what her work will result in, a full novel or a shorter story, we just don't know, but it's definitely fiction that she's working on."

Mrs Shields, who lives with her husband Donald in Victoria, British Columbia, has long been admired for her resilient, no-nonsense spirit. She was diagnosed with breast cancer more than three years ago, but returned from a mastectomy and lengthy bouts of radiation treatment and chemotherapy to write Unless, one of her most acclaimed books to date.

Few were surprised when the novel secured Mrs Shields, who already has a Pulitzer Prize and an Orange Prize to her name, her second Booker nomination. However, many critics detected a sense of frustration and anger absent from earlier novels such as The Stone Diaries, Larry's Party and Happenstance. Perhaps appropriately for someone writing during a rare period of remission from a malignant cancer, the opening line of Unless reads: "I am going through a period of great unhappiness and loss now."

The daughter of a factory manager and a schoolteacher, the Chicago-born author is extraordinarily prolific. After marrying at the age of 22, she spent 18 years as, in her own words, "a typical woman, a typical housewife, a living statistic", before "waking up" to politics, feminism and writing in her mid-30s.

Since taking up novel writing at the relatively late age of 40, she has produced 14 books, including three volumes of poetry.

The Stone Diaries was shortlisted for the Booker in 1993 and won the Pulitzer two years later, while Mrs Shields' 1997 novel, Larry's Party, won the Orange Prize for Fiction.

Mrs Shields' steeliness invites comparisons with Dennis Potter, the late television playwright who raced to complete his final two works, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, before dying of cancer of the pancreas in 1994.

Prize may be extended to foreign writers

The Booker Prize, for decades confined to novels written in English, could be extended to foreign-language books.

Plans are under way to include translations of titles from around the globe in future shortlists in an effort to widen the profile of Britain's premier literary award.

An alternative is to create a new offshoot of the main prize, geared solely to foreign-language novels.

News of the proposals comes on the eve of this year's award ceremony for the newly inflated £50,000 prize, which in a break with tradition takes place at the British Museum rather than its customary home, the Guildhall.

They are bound to re-ignite controversy over ongoing plans to expand the Booker, which currently covers Britain and the Commonwealth, across the English-speaking world, including America.

Details of the new proposals were confirmed last night by Harvey McGrath, chairman of the Booker's new sponsor, City-based alternative investment broker the Man Group.

While stressing that none of the proposals were "a given", he said: "There is a possibility of a foreign-language prize or the translations of foreign-language books into English being included on the Booker shortlist."

However, a "Booker America" was more likely in the short term, Mr McGrath added. He confirmed that a working group had been set up by the trustees of the 34-year-old prize to discuss extending future shortlists to cover US authors.

When the idea was mooted last spring, it provoked an angry reaction from Lisa Jardine, the chairwoman of this year's judging panel. Professor Jardine declined to comment on the latest proposals. But she said: "As a critic, I believe that there are two voices in fiction, the American and the Anglo-European, and at the moment, with the Iraq situation, it's particularly important to maintain that."