Beatty novel a Sellout at Man Booker
london — Paul Beatty has became the first US author to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout, which the novelist said should not be read as a “mono-directional” take on race.
The jury behind the world’s most prestigious English-language literary award said the novel was a “shocking and unexpectedly funny” portrayal of Beatty’s native Los Angeles, using satire to explore racial equality in a fictional neighbourhood.
Beatty said readers should think of the novel as a work of fiction rather than solely focusing on race. “I tend to bristle when people say it’s black, it’s angry, it’s about race,” he told journalists after picking up the award at a glitzy black-tie ceremony in London’s historic Guildhall building on Tuesday. “Hopefully it’s not so mono-directional.
“These labels are more mallea- ble than we like to think about them,” the 54-year-old writer said.
Beatty appeared overwhelmed when he took to the stage to receive the award from Prince Charles’s wife Camilla. “I can’t tell you guys how long a journey this has been for me,” he said.
The jury said that through his “equally affectionate and bitterly ironic portrait of the city and its inhabitants, Paul Beatty dodges inherited views of race relations, solutions or assumptions”.
The winner of the Man Booker receives £52,500, (59,000 euros). —
london — Paul Beatty was on Tuesday named as the first American to win the prestigious Man Booker fiction prize, for The Sellout, a biting satire on race relations in the United States.
The narrator of The Sellout, an African-American called ‘Bonbon’ tries to put his Californian town back on the map, from which it has been officially removed, by re-introducing slavery and segregation in its high school.
The 289-page novel begins with ‘Bonbon’ facing a hearing in the Supreme Court, looking back over the events that led up to that point.
The language is uncompromising and may offend some readers. So might some of the content — one old Black film actor asks to become Bonbon’s slave — as Beatty lampoons racial stereotypes. The protagonist’s father is unjustly shot by police.
“This is a hard book. It was hard for me to write, it’s hard to read,” said a tearful Beatty immediately after winning the award at a ceremony at London’s historic Guildhall.
“For me, it’s just really gratifying that something that’s important to me is also important for other > Chair of the five judges for the £50,000 ($60,900) prize Amanda Foreman said The Sellout had been a unanimous choice > The narrator of The Sellout tries to put his Californian town back on the map. > “This is a hard book. It was hard for me to write, it’s hard to read,” says a tearful Beatty immediately after winning the award at a ceremony at London’s historic Guildhall. > Apart from the £50,000 prize, each of the six shortlisted authors wins £2,500 ($3,045). > Beatty says, “I’m a perfectionist in some ways and I get easily disgruntled and discouraged with what I’m doing”. people,” he later told a news conference.
Chair of the five judges for the £50,000 ($60,900) prize Amanda Foreman said The Sellout had been a unanimous choice, reached after a meeting lasting some four hours.
Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize for Paul Beatty speaks on stage at the The Guildhall in London on Tuesday night. —
The Sellout, “It plunges into the heart of contemporary American society with absolutely savage wit of the kind I haven’t seen since Swift or Twain,” she said.
“It manages to eviscerate every social nuance, every sacred cow,
is a hard book to read
while making us laugh and also making us wince. It is really a novel for our times.”
Asked about the language, Foreman said, “Paul Beatty has said being offended is not an emotion. That’s his answer to the reader,” Foreman said.
The Sellout is 54-year-old Beatty’s fourth novel. He has also edited an anthology of AfricanAmerican humour.
It was publisher Oneworld’s second Man Booker victory after winning the 2015 prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings by Jamaican Marlon James.
Beatty said he would not have written the book had his partner not persuaded him to apply for a grant that allowed him time to complete the book.
“I don’t like writing,” he said. “I’m a perfectionist in some ways and I get easily disgruntled and discouraged with what I’m doing.”
Apart from the £50,000 prize, each of the six shortlisted authors wins £2,500 ($3,045) winning the Man Booker can have a major impact on a writer’s sales and readership. James told Reuters recently that winning the prize can have a “seismic” impact. —