HERE’S TO YET ANOTHER YEAR OF FIRSTS
In what was another instance of first-time-ever, the Booker Prize 2019 saw joint winners, keeping up with the uncanny pattern they’ve followed the last few years
For an honour that has been conferred to literary works for 50 years now, the Booker Prize, unsurprisingly, has had its fair share of controversies. Be it the committee’s decision to extend the inclusion from nonCommonwealth countries or awarding the prize to comparatively ‘unpopular’ novels, the fact remains that it is the most prestigious award in the literary world. But, of late, when one looks at the past awardees, it becomes quite evident that the winners, literary merit aside, more often than not, have stood out for one or the other reasons.
1. MARLON JAMES’ A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS (2015)
Dubbed as the African Game of Thrones, Marlon James became the first Jamaican author to win the Booker in 2015. James’ most revered work explores the dangerous and politically violent Caribbean nation in the ’70s. An assassination attempt on the country’s greatest export, Bob Marley, spurs the intriguing 700-pager. James’ prose paints a realistic portrait of the troubled nation that spans three decades. The author was able to do this because he grew up in those times disgusted by it. He had famously said, “Whether it was in a plane or a coffin, I knew I had to get out of Jamaica”. He’d argued that Jamaica, then, was a homophobic and violent country that won’t serve his purpose of becoming an author.
2. PAUL BEATTY’S THE SELLOUT (2016)
In what was another year of firsts, Paul Beatty became the first American author to win the Booker. Called the best dark satire to be published in recent years, the novel questions the fundamental ethos of the American constitution. The sell-out won The Man Booker Prize in 2016 and is a very timely piece; addressing the problems that African-Americans face in a country that has supposedly moved on from its original sin of slavery. Segregation has ended, racism is officially at an all-time low, but many issues still sustain. Society does not change overnight, or, as it may seem, over many decades.
3. GEORGE SAUNDERS’ LINCOLN IN THE BARDO (2017)
Paul Beatty’s Booker-winning novel was quickly followed by another American writer winning the prize. Saunders’ novel stood out from the other shortlisted works for being experimental. More so, because it was his very first novel. Bardo, as the name says, is a Buddhist term that means the state between death and rebirth. The duration of this stage depends on the person’s conduct in the life he/she lived. Now, take this idea and weave it in 1862 America, just after the Civil War. Moreover, the entire 360-pager takes place in a span of an evening. These unequivocally distinct aspects turned the judges to his favour.
4. ANNA BURNS’ MILKMAN (2018)
The year 2018 saw the first Northern Irish writer win the Booker Prize. Anna Burns’ Milkman is set in an unnamed city. An evocation of a world in which bigotry rules supreme, no one in the novel gets a name as to signify that names in this world are meaningless. The antagonist, Milkman, himself is the total of fearful rumours that travel around the city. Two things though are certain — firstly, he possesses intimidating authority as an enforcer of the repressive status quo, and secondly, he drives a white van, one of the misogyny’s most benign yet potent symbols. This is how the author wants her characters to take shape in the reader’s minds.