An anonymous Iraqi woman has become the first blog author to be in the running for a big literary prize for a book published between hard covers.

　　Baghdad Burning, by a 26-year-old author who has won an international readership under the pen name Riverbend, is longlisted for the ?30,000 Samuel Johnson award. In the list, announced today, she is up against 18 other books including Alan Bennett's latest bestseller, histories of the cold war and the great wall of China, and a biography of the 19th-century cookbook author Mrs Beeton. The Guardian carried an extract from Riverbend's title last summer.

　　The small literary publisher Marion Boyars brought out Baghdad Burning last year, classifying it under biography and memoir. The publishing house says it knows Riverbend's identity but respects her wish to remain anonymous.

　　It has already come third in the Lettre Ulysses prize for Reportage, winning ?14,000, and was shortlisted for an Index on Censorship freedom of expression award.

　　Riverbend began the blog with the words: "I'm female, Iraqi and 24. I survived the war.

　　That's all you need to know. It's all that matters these days anyway."

　　University-educated Riverbend worked as a computer programmer before the invasion which began on March 20, 2003.

　　She lost her job, she told her readers, when it became too dangerous for Iraqi women to travel to work alone.