Man Booker Prize

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Man Booker Prize

Awarded for Best full-length English novel
Presented by Man Group
Location Commonwealth of Nations or Ireland
First awarded 1968
Official website
P.H. Newby was the first winner of the Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known in short as the Booker Prize, is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or Ireland.

The winner of the Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and success and, for this reason, the prize is of great significance for the book trade.[1] It is also a mark of distinction for authors to be nominated for the Booker longlist or selected for inclusion in the shortlist. In 1993, the Booker of Bookers Prize was awarded to Salman Rushdie for Midnight's Children (the 1981 winner), as the best novel to win the award in the first 25 years of its existence. A similar prize known as The Best of the Booker was awarded in 2008 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the prize - this was also won by Midnight's Children.[2][3]

The most recent recipient of the Booker Prize is Indian author Aravind Adiga, for his debut novel The White Tiger; the winner was announced on October 14, 2008.[4]

For a complete list of winning and shortlisted authors, see List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction.

Contents

[edit] History

The prize was originally known as the Booker-McConnell Prize after the company Booker-McConnell began sponsoring the event in 1968, and became commonly known as the "Booker Prize" or simply "the Booker". When administration of the prize was transferred to the Booker Prize Foundation in 2002, the title sponsor became the investment company Man Group, which opted to retain "Booker" as part of the official title of the prize. The prize money awarded with the Booker Prize was originally £21,000, and was subsequently raised to £50,000 in 2002 under the sponsorship of the Man Group.

[edit] Judging

The selection process for the winner of the prize commences with the formation of an advisory committee which includes an author, two publishers, a literary agent, a bookseller, a librarian, and a chairperson appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation. The advisory committee then selects the judging panel, the membership of which changes each year, although on rare occasions a judge may be selected a second time. Judges are selected from amongst leading literary critics, writers, academics and notable public figures. The winner is usually announced at a ceremony in London's Guildhall.

[edit] Booker Prize winners

Year Author Country Title
1969 P. H. Newby United Kingdom Something to Answer For
1970 Bernice Rubens United Kingdom The Elected Member
1971 V. S. Naipaul Trinidad and Tobago/United Kingdom In a Free State
1972 John Berger United Kingdom G.
1973 J. G. Farrell United Kingdom The Siege of Krishnapur
1974 Nadine Gordimer
Stanley Middleton
South Africa
United Kingdom
The Conservationist
Holiday
1975 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala United Kingdom/Germany Heat and Dust
1976 David Storey United Kingdom Saville
1977 Paul Scott United Kingdom Staying On
1978 Iris Murdoch Ireland/United Kingdom The Sea, the Sea
1979 Penelope Fitzgerald United Kingdom Offshore
1980 William Golding United Kingdom Rites of Passage
1981 Salman Rushdie United Kingdom/India Midnight's Children
1982 Thomas Keneally Australia Schindler's Ark
1983 J. M. Coetzee South Africa/Australia Life & Times of Michael K
1984 Anita Brookner United Kingdom Hotel du Lac
1985 Keri Hulme New Zealand The Bone People
1986 Kingsley Amis United Kingdom The Old Devils
1987 Penelope Lively United Kingdom Moon Tiger
1988 Peter Carey Australia Oscar and Lucinda
1989 Kazuo Ishiguro United Kingdom/Japan The Remains of the Day
1990 A. S. Byatt United Kingdom Possession: A Romance
1991 Ben Okri Nigeria The Famished Road
1992 Michael Ondaatje
Barry Unsworth
Sri Lanka/Canada
United Kingdom
The English Patient
Sacred Hunger
1993 Roddy Doyle Ireland Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
1994 James Kelman United Kingdom How Late It Was, How Late
1995 Pat Barker United Kingdom The Ghost Road
1996 Graham Swift United Kingdom Last Orders
1997 Arundhati Roy India The God of Small Things
1998 Ian McEwan United Kingdom Amsterdam
1999 J. M. Coetzee South Africa/Australia Disgrace
2000 Margaret Atwood Canada The Blind Assassin
2001 Peter Carey Australia True History of the Kelly Gang
2002 Yann Martel Canada Life of Pi
2003 DBC Pierre Australia/Mexico Vernon God Little
2004 Alan Hollinghurst United Kingdom The Line of Beauty
2005 John Banville Ireland The Sea
2006 Kiran Desai India The Inheritance of Loss
2007 Anne Enright Ireland The Gathering
2008 Aravind Adiga India/Australia The White Tiger

[edit] Booker facts and statistics

  • Each publisher's imprint may submit two titles. In addition, previous winners of the prize and those who have been shortlisted in the previous ten years are automatically considered. Books may also be called in: publishers can make written representations to the judges to consider titles in addition to those already entered. In the 21st century the average number of books considered by the judges has been approximately 130.
  • The list of books making the longlist was first released in 2001. In 2003 there were 23 books on the longlist, in 2002 there were 20 and in 2001 there were 24.
  • For the first 35 years of the Booker, there were only five years when fewer than six books were on the shortlist, and two years (1980 and 1981) when there were seven on the shortlist.
  • As of (2003):
    • Over the first 35 years there were a total of 201 novels from 135 authors on the shortlists.
    • Of the 97 novelists nominated once, there were 13 winners and three joint winners.
    • Of the 19 novelists nominated twice, there were seven winners and one two-time winner (J. M. Coetzee).
    • Of the 10 novelists nominated three times, there were four winners, one joint winner and one two-time winner (Peter Carey).
    • Of the six four-time nominees, all but William Trevor have won once. The other four-time nominees are Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Thomas Keneally and Penelope Fitzgerald.
    • There have only been two five-time nominees, Margaret Atwood (first nominated in 1986 and won in 2000) and Beryl Bainbridge (nominated twice in the 1970s and three times in the 1990s, but she has never won).
    • There has been only one six-time nominee, Iris Murdoch, who won on her fourth nomination in 1978 and was nominated twice more in the 1980s.
  • The prize is only open to authors from countries within the Commonwealth. The only exception to this is Ireland. Irish authors have always been considered for the prize even though Ireland is not a member of the Commonwealth.
  • Including authors with dual citizenship, the United Kingdom has the most winners of the prize at 24. Second is Australia with six winners (counting both Coetzee[5] and Carey twice); Ireland and India each have four winners.

[edit] Related awards

A separate prize for which any living author in the world may qualify, the Man Booker International Prize, was inaugurated in 2005 and is awarded biennially. A Russian version of the Booker Prize was created in 1992. In 2007, Man Group plc and the Hong Kong Literary Festival Ltd established the Man Asian Literary Prize, the award will seek entries from Asian writers for works that are yet to be published in English.

[edit] Cheltenham Booker Prize

As part of the Times' Literature Festival in Cheltenham, a 'Booker' event is held on the last Saturday. Four guest speakers/judges debate a 'shortlist' of four books from a given year from before the introduction of the Booker prize, and a winner is chosen. Unlike the real Man Booker, foreign authors are allowed. In 2008, the winner for 1948 was Alan Paton's 'Cry, the Beloved Country', beating Norman Mailer's 'The Naked and the Dead', Graham Greene's 'The Heart of the Matter' and Evelyn Waugh's 'The Loved One'.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The Booker's Big Bang", New Statesman, 09 October 2008
  2. ^ 'Best of the Booker' pits Rushdie against 40 pretenders | News | guardian.co.uk Books
  3. ^ "Rushdie wins Best of Booker prize", BBC News, 10 July 2008
  4. ^ http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/thisyear
  5. ^ Coetzee was born and raised in South Africa and won both of his Bookers prior to his emigration to Australia in 2003.

[edit] External links

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