She has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize over the past three decades, but the prestigious award for British and Commonwealth authors has always gone to someone else.

Yesterday, at the age of 87, Doris Lessing was nominated for the ultimate accolade, the international version of the Man Booker prize for fiction, one of the most eminent events in the literary calendar.

Along with Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie, she is one of three British authors who have been shortlisted for a £60,000 prize that is open to authors of all nationalities who write in English or whose work is generally available in translation.

Fifteen heavyweight authors from ten countries were picked for a judges’ list of contenders that includes seven former Booker Prize winners — notably John Banville, of Ireland; Margaret Atwood, of Canada; and Peter Carey, of Australia.

Lessing, who was raised in what was then Southern Rhodesia and came to Britain in 1949, became a feminist icon with her classics, The Grass is Singing, a story set in colonial Africa, and The Golden Notebook, about a female writer’s descent into madness.

She went on to be shortlisted for the Booker three times — for Briefing For a Descent into Hell (1971), The Sirian Experiments (1981) and The Good Terrorist (1985). When The Times broke the news to her yesterday, she said: “I’m so glad. I’m absolutely delighted.”

The judges hailed the “incredible productivity, variety and depth of her work”. Each of the candidates has been picked for a body of work, rather than a single novel.

The Man Booker International Prize differs from the annual £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction in that it highlights one writer’s “continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage”. The international version is awarded once every two years to a living author.

The inaugural prize, in 2005, went to Ismail Kadaré, the Albanian dissident novelist and poet, whose books were banned under communism and who has been compared with Gogol, Kafka and Orwell.

When Banville won the Booker two years ago with The Sea, sales increased by hundreds of thousands. Now he can expect even more. Commenting on the latest shortlisting, he told The Times: “It’s interesting that it’s for a body of work rather than one book, which seems more sensible. Whoever wins, the press won’t be able to say ‘he won it for the wrong book’. I’m flattered to be on such an exalted list.”

Elaine Showalter, Professor Emeritus of English and Avalon Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, chaired a panel of judges that included Nadine Gordimer, the South African Nobel-winning writer, and Colm Tóibin, the Irish writer and academic. She said: “With McEwan, we were struck by his development from early stories, which were macabre, to the tenderness and social vision of his more recent work. Rushdie has an extraordinarily imaginative exuberance. He is a writer of astonishing, explosive, imaginative gifts.”

The list also includes Philip Roth, arguably the most decorated American writer of his era. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his 1997 novel, American Pastoral, and was yesterday installed by Ladbrokes, as 4/1 favourite.

Other authors include Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist, best-known for Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, which was described by the Booker judges as among the finest novels ever written.

The winner will be announced in June.

Head-to-head

— Ian McEwan. Lives in Britain. Won the Booker with Amsterdam (10/1)

— Chinua Achebe. Nigerian author of Things Fall Apart, which has sold more than ten million copies (16/1)

— Peter Carey: Australian author who lives in America. Has won the Booker twice, in 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang and in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda (6/1)

— Doris Lessing. Lives in Britain. Her first novel was published in 1949 (8/1)

— Carlos Fuentes Macías. Lives in America. Fiction includes The Years with Laura Díaz (25/1)

— John Banville. Lives in Ireland. Won the Booker Prize in 2005 with The Sea (14/1)

— Harry Mulisch. Lives in Holland. Fiction includes The Jump of Horses and the Sweet Sea (16/1)

— Salman Rushdie. Lives in the US. In 1993 the author won “Booker of Bookers” (14/1)

— Don DeLillo. Lives in the US. Widely considered to be one of the central figures of literary postmodernism. Fiction includes White Noise (6/1)

— Alice Munro. Lives in Canada. Author of Lives of Girls and Women (25/1)

— Philip Roth. Pullizer-Prize winning US author (4/1)

— Margaret Atwood. Lives in Canada. Won the Booker in 2000 (12/1)

— Amos Oz. Lives in Israel. Fiction includes A Perfect Peace (20/1)

— Michael Ondaatje. Lives in Canada. Fiction includes The English Patient (33/1)

— Michel Tournier. Lives in France. Won the Prix Goncourt for Le Roi des aulnes (25/1)

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