To celebrate 40 years of the Man Booker literary prize, a shortlist of six past winners has been drawn up, from which one will be picked by the public for a Best of the Booker award.

Iris Murdoch, William Golding and Kingsley Amis are among some of the 20th century’s foremost writers who have failed to make the shortlist.

The nominees are Sir Salman Rushdie, Pat Barker, Peter Carey, J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and J. G. Farrell. Four of them were born outside Britain.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is given annually by a committee of prominent literary and public figures for the best English novel. The final choice for the Best of the Booker will be the first to be made by the public.

The shortlist was drawn up by a panel of judges that included John Mullan, Professor of English at University College London, and the biographer Victoria Glendinning as chairman.

Midnight’s Children, which won in 1981, is Rushdie’s most highly regarded work of fiction, though only his second novel. The shortlist, announced today, spans three decades of winners: Barker’s The Ghost Road (1995), a First World War story; Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda (1988), set in 19th-century Australia; J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999), about a professor who seduces a student; Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist (1974), which describes a white man’s exploitation of his black employees; and J.G Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), a story set in 1850s India.

Absent from the list are Amis’s The Old Devils (1986), Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea (1978), and Golding’s Rites of Passage (1980). Other former winners failing to make the list include Sir V. S. Naipaul, who in 2001 became the first British author to win the Nobel Prize since Golding in 1983.

Professor Mullan said that they had considered Murdoch and Golding but that the books that won them the Booker were not necessarily their best. “Rushdie won in 1981 for what his fans or detractors would think of as his best book . . . It has an ebullience and a brilliance,” he said.

Ms Glendinning, a biographer of Anthony Trollope, said: “It was very tough arriving at the shortlist – but we really feel that the six novels we picked represent the best fiction writing of the past 40 years and that each one will stand the test of time. As to which of the six is the most important, and the most enjoyable, that is up to the readers to decide.”

Ion Trewin, the prize administrator, said: “Everybody has their own personal taste. I was surprised that one or two things weren’t there, such as Thomas Kenneally’s Schindler’s Ark. When I was a publisher I edited that book in 1982, so it has always remained a favourite of mine.” He noted that the Booker judges had, over 40 years, made some “wonderful” choices and that all but one, P. H. Newby’s Something To Answer For, the first winner, were still in print.

Polling opens today to the public. Through libraries, reading groups, retailers and the website themanbook-erprize.com, the organisers expect millions of people across the globe to register votes. In 1993 the Booker celebrated its 25th anniversary with a Booker of Bookers. It was won by Midnight’s Children. William Hill has installed Rushdie as the favourite with odds of 6/4, followed by Barker (3/1), Carey (4/1), Coetzee (5/1), Gordimer (8/1) and Farrell (10/1).

The winner will be announced as part of the London Literature Festival on July 10.

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