The shortlist for a new literary prize - rivalling the Man Booker - has been unveiled and is dominated by north American writers.

The £40,000 Folio Prize, which is open to any book published in the UK in 2013, will be contested by two British-born writers, five US writers, and a Canadian. British-born Eimear McBride and Jane Gardam, nominated for A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing and Last Friends, are up against Canadian Ann Carson's poetry collection Red Doc; A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava; short-story collection Tenth of December by George Saunders; Amity Gaige's Schroder; Rachel Kushner's The Flame Throwers; and Benediction by Kent Haruf.

The Booker prize will be open to all writers regardless of nationality from this year.