I like Banville more as Benjamin Black, though but then I am more into detective fiction. As to his chances, I must agree with you that his crime-writing ways could be a liability. He's not really your average, run-of-the-mill crime writer. Sure there's a lot of murders, but he writes it so beautifully - the "Banville" part still comes out - I sometimes forget I'm reading crime fiction. ETA: If we're talking about Ireland, I would love to see William Trevor and his dark, bleak, funny-strange literary world, in contention. Murakami. I'm always pleasantly surprised that his name comes up in this. The Academy is allergic to genre and he's one of those writers who straddles SF/F and the "literary" fiction world. The man won a World Fantasy Award! You don't get much more "genre" than that. Marquez - yeah, he can get nominated, but doubt that he would win it. Not so much because of the rules, but because the South American literary world has moved on from magic realism. See Macondo vs McOndo.