The winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize will be announced at 10 pm tonight (UK time), says Man Booker. That will be early tomorrow morning in Asia. Meanwhile, here’s the buzz on the £50,000 Commonwealth literary award on Twitter and FriendFeed.

Hear the BBC interviews with the six shortlisted authors — JM Coetzee, AS Byatt, Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters, Adam Foulds and Simon Mawer. You can also listen to extracts from their respective novels: Summertime, The Children’s Book, Wolf Hall, The Little Stranger, The Quickening Maze and The Glass Room.

Click here or here to listen to the BBC interviews and the readings.

Unusually, all the shortlisted authors are British except the South African born Coetzee. He has won the prize twice before — for Life & Times of Michael K in 1983 and Disgrace in 1999.

The Indian Aravind Adiga won last year for The White Tiger.

Alan Hollinghurst was the last British winner, taking the prize in 2004 for The Line Of Beauty.

Hilary Mantel is the odds-on favourite to win this year for her historical novel, Wolf Hall, set in the court of Henry VIII and centring on the character of Thomas Cromwell.

The Online Betting Guide gives the following odds on all the six shortlisted authors and their works.

Hilary Mantel	Wolf Hall	11/10
Simon Mawer	The Glass Room	4/1
JM Coetzee	Summertime	6/1
Sarah Waters	The Little Stranger	6/1
AS Byatt	The Children’s Book	10/1
Adam Foulds	The Quickening Maze	12/1