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THE BOOKER PRIZE
1THE 2017 Man Booker Prize is awarded tomorrow. Who called it ‘posh bingo’? A. Joanna Lumley B. Julian Barnes C. The Duchess of Cornwall D. Philip Larkin 2MATCH the Booker winner to what they said they would spend their winnings on: 1. Ian McEwan 2. Howard Jacobson 3. Marlon James 4. A. S. Byatt A. A pool for their house in Provence B. Something perfectly useless C. A new handbag D. A Savile Row suit 3TRUE OR FALSE: In 1989, women outnumbered men on the longlist for the first time. 4WHICH record does winner Hilary Mantel NOT hold? A. Youngest female winner B. The first woman and the first British author to win the prize twice C. The first Booker author to enter the official UK Top 50 at the No 1 spot D. The first person to win the prize for two novels in a trilogy 5TRUE OR FALSE: you could win the prize with a book of only 100 pages. 6 WHICH of these films was NOT adapted from a Booker Prize-winning book? A. Schindler’s List B. The Remains Of The Day C. Atonement D. The English Patient
ANSWERS 1) B. Julian Barnes
BARNES, who was shortlisted three times before winning in 2011, said: ‘Novelists had better conclude the only sensible attitude to the Booker is to treat it as posh bingo.’
Joanna Lumley said of her stint as a judge in 1985: ‘The so-called bitchy world of acting was a Brownies’ tea party compared with the piranha-infested waters of publishing.’
2) 1B, 2C, 3D, 4A
THE winner receives £50,000 as well as the £2,500 awarded to each of the six shortlisted authors. Jacobson promised to spend the cash on a gift for his wife, quipping: ‘Have you seen the price of handbags?’
3) FALSE
THE longlist was first publicly released in 2001, and 2013 was the first occasion women outnumbered men — the same year in which bookmaker William Hill offered odds on whether the winner would be male or female for the first time.
4) A. The youngest female winner
ELEANOR Catton, from New Zealand, was the youngest person to win the prize, in 2013, aged 28. Mantel won in 2009 for Wolf Hall and in 2012 for Bring Up The Bodies.
5) TRUE
AT LeAST, in theory. The rules state only that the judges must be satisfied an entry is ‘a unified and substantial work’. The shortest winning novel was just 132 pages — Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald, in 1979. The longest was 832 pages — The Luminaries by eleanor Catton in 2013.
6) C. Atonement
IAN Mcewan’S novel was shortlisted in 2001. Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark won in 1982, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains Of The Day won in 1989, and Michael Ondaatje’s The english Patient won in 1992.