Anyone with half an eye on the literary world can’t help but notice the hype around the Booker Prize which is everywhere at this time of year. Recently, this Booker frenzy has only been intensified by the contoversy surrounding the decision to make American authors eligible for the prize. But what exactly is all the fuss about? Elli Christie, Books Editor, takes a closer look…
The Man Booker Prize, or as it is more commonly known, the Booker, is a prize which many British and Commonwealth writers have long yearned to win. Soon it will be possible for writers the world over to join in this yearning, since it was recently announced that from 2014 the prize will open up to any work which is written in English and published in the UK.
This news of change has created a uproar in the literary community. The Booker has been at the heart of British publishing since it was first started in 1968, when it was originally known as the Booker McConnell prize due to the company which sponsored it. However, this change in criteria is not the first in the Booker’s history nor is it the first controversy. Previous arguments have seen Trainspotting removed from the longlist in 1993, Anthony Burgess refusing to turn up and many of the judging decisions being called into question.
Those in charge of the Man Booker committee also love to have spin-off competitions; which has led to Midnight’s Children winning The Best of the Booker, the Booker of Bookers prize and the Man Booker itself. In 2010 there was also an attempt to rectify the misfortune of losing a year when the rules were changed in 1970 so that books were no longer considered from the previous year but instead from the current one. J. G. Farrell’s Troubles won this prize after a shortlist was given to the public vote.
This year the shortlist has proved to once again epitomise the eclectic nature of the Man Booker prize, ranging from Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary to Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries and also including NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, Jim Crace’s Harvest, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland and Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. The winner will be announced on 15 October, having been previously slimmed down from a long list of 13 titles and a possible pool of 140 novels by a judging panel chaired by Robert Macfarlane.
Elli Christie, Books Editor
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