Judging the prize
THE Man Booker Prize is awarded each year to the best original novel written in the English language and published in Britain. It’s one of the world’s most prestigious English-language literary awards, and the winner is guaranteed a huge increase in global sales that dwarfs the £50,000 (RM270,000) prize money.
Founded in 1969 and originally open only to writers from Britain, Ireland, and the Common-wealth, the Booker expanded in 2014 to include all authors writing in English. Its first non-British winner was American author Paul Beatty for The Sellout in 2016.
The change spurred fears among some British writers and publishers that it would bring US dominance to a quintessentially British prize; however, Baroness Lola Young who is chairperson of the 2017 judging panel, said “nationality is not an issue” in the judges’ consideration of the submitted books.
“We make our judgment based not on anybody’s nationality or their gender or anything else, other than what is written on those pages,” she said at last month’s shortlist announcement.
Ion Trewin, literary director of the Booker Prize Foundation from
2006 until his death in April 2015, wrote at the prize website, themanbookerprize.com, that Booker judges are not confined to any in-group of literary critics, but “over the years have included poets, politicians, journalists, broadcasters, and actors”.
This “common man” approach is, he wrote, “one of the key reasons why the intelligent general audience trusts the prize”.
It is certainly one of the more well-known literary prizes; in Britain, the Booker longlist and shortlist are tracked by betting agencies, and the gala award ceremony, which takes place in London on Tuesday this year, is broadcast nationally on the BBC. – Agencies/themanbookerprize. com