Operation Atwood

Cloak of secrecy as copies of book that isn’t out yet are delivered to reviewers under highest security

DELIVERED under lock and key, with its recipients sworn to secrecy... it sounds like something from the pages of a spy story.

This year’s Booker Prize judges have revealed how they reviewed copies of Margaret Atwood’s new novel – which is yet to be published.

The Testaments, the highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, is in the running for the literary award despite not being released until next Tuesday.

Judging of Miss Atwood’s novel was shrouded in secrecy, with the judges, based around the world, made to sign a strict non-disclosure agreement.

Special manuscripts were handdelivered to members of the panel, individually watermarked with their name so any leaks could be hunted down.

Judge Xiaolu Guo revealed that a courier refused to hand the book over to visiting relatives when he called while she was out.

Fellow judge Afua Hirsch said she hid her copy, adding: ‘We were left under no doubt about the importance of that manuscript remaining confidential and not being seen by anyone.’ Panel chairman Peter Florence said it took an ‘extraordinarily complicated’ legal agreement to allow the judging panel to read it.

Gaby Wood, of The Booker Prize Foundation, added: ‘The publishers did go to incredible lengths to get copies to each of the judges.

‘Whatever you think of the secrecy around this book, they were working incredibly hard to preserve it in a global context. And it just so happens that this set of judges was in very far-flung places.’ Miss Atwood previously won the prize for The Blind Assassin in 2000.

Sir Salman Rushdie is the second former winner on the shortlist of six, released yesterday. Midnight’s Children took the prize in 1981, and his new book, Quichotte, is included this year.

Other authors to make the final selection are Lucy Ellmann, Bernardine Evaristo, Elif Shafak and Chigozie Obioma, who is shortlisted for the second time.