Booker Prize

For the related prize given for a book translated to English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, see International Booker Prize.

The Booker Prize
Awarded forBest work of sustained fiction of the year, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland
LocationSomerset House, Strand, London, England
CountryUnited Kingdom Edit this on Wikidata
Presented by
Reward(s)£50,000
First awarded1969; 56 years ago (1969)
Websitewww.thebookerprizes.com

The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost.[1] When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African (and later Zimbabwean) citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.[2][3]

A five-person panel consisting of authors, publishers and journalists, as well as politicians, actors, artists and musicians,[4] is appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation each year to choose the winning book.[5][6] As of 2024, the chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation is Gaby Wood.[7][8][9]

A high-profile literary award in British culture, the Booker Prize is greeted with anticipation and fanfare around the world.[10] Literary critics have noted that it is a mark of distinction for authors to be selected for inclusion in the shortlist or to be nominated for the "longlist".[1]

A sister prize, the International Booker Prize, is awarded for a work of fiction translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Unlike the Booker Prize, short story collections are eligible for the International Booker Prize. The £50,000 prize money is split evenly between the author and translator of the winning novel.[11]

History and administration

The prize was established as the "Booker Prize for Fiction" after the company Booker, McConnell Ltd began sponsoring the event in 1969;[12] it became commonly known as the "Booker Prize" or the "Booker". Jock Campbell, Charles Tyrrell and Tom Maschler were instrumental in establishing the prize.

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 foundation is an independent registered charity funded by the entire profits of Booker Prize Trading Ltd, of which it is the sole shareholder.[13] The prize money awarded with the Booker Prize was originally £5,000.[14] It doubled in 1978 to £10,000 and was subsequently raised to £50,000 in 2002 under the sponsorship of the Man Group, making it one of the world's richest literary prizes. Each of the shortlisted authors receives £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.[14]

The original Booker Prize trophy was designed by the artist Jan Pieńkowski[15] and the design was revived for the 2023 prize.

1969–1979

The first winner of the Booker Prize was P. H. Newby in 1969 for his novel Something to Answer For. W. L. Webb, The Guardian's Literary Editor, was chair of the inaugural set of judges,[6] which included Rebecca West, Stephen Spender, Frank Kermode and David Farrer.[16]

In 1970, the prize's second year, Bernice Rubens became the first woman to win the Booker Prize, for The Elected Member.[17]

The rules of the Booker changed in 1971; previously, it had been given retrospectively, to books published in the year prior to each award. In 1971, eligibility was changed to make the year of a novel's publication the same as the year of the award, which was made in November; in effect, this meant that books published in 1970 were not considered for the Booker in either year.[18] Forty years later, the Booker Prize Foundation announced in January 2010 the creation of a special award called the "Lost Man Booker Prize", with the winner chosen from a longlist of 22 novels published in 1970.[19] The prize was won by J. G. Farrell for Troubles, though the author had died in 1979.

In 1972, winning writer John Berger, known for his Marxist worldview, protested during his acceptance speech against Booker McConnell. He blamed Booker's 130 years of sugar production in the Caribbean for the region's modern poverty.[20][21] Berger donated half of his £5,000 prize to the British Black Panther movement, because it had a socialist and revolutionary perspective in agreement with his own.[22][20][12][23]

1980–1999

In 1980, Anthony Burgess, writer of Earthly Powers, refused to attend the ceremony unless it was confirmed to him in advance whether he had won.[12] His was one of two books considered likely to win, the other being Rites of Passage by William Golding. The judges decided only 30 minutes before the ceremony, giving the prize to Golding. Both novels had been seen as favourites to win leading up to the prize, and the dramatic "literary battle" between two senior writers made front-page news.[12][24]

Alice Munro's The Beggar Maid was shortlisted in 1980, and remains the only short-story collection to be shortlisted.[25]

In 1981, nominee John Banville wrote a letter to The Guardian requesting that the prize be given to him so that he could use the money to buy every copy of the longlisted books in Ireland and donate them to libraries, "thus ensuring that the books not only are bought but also read – surely a unique occurrence".[12][26]

Judging for the 1983 award produced a draw between J. M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K and Salman Rushdie's Shame, leaving chair of judges Fay Weldon to choose between the two. According to Stephen Moss in The Guardian, "Her arm was bent and she chose Rushdie", only to change her mind as the result was being phoned through.[27] At the award ceremony, Fay Weldon used her speech to attack the assembled publishers, accusing them of exploiting and undervaluing authors. "I will ask you if in your dealings with authors you are really being fair, and honourable, and right? Or merely getting away with what you can? If you are not careful, you will kill the goose that lays your golden eggs."[28]

In 1988, Peter Carey won the first of his two Booker Prizes for Oscar and Lucinda (which would later be shortlisted for The Best of the Booker).

In 1992, the jury split the prize between Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger. This prompted the foundation to draw up a rule that made it mandatory for the appointed jury to make the award to just a single author/book.

The choice of James Kelman's book How Late It Was, How Late as 1994 Booker Prize winner proved to be one of the most controversial in the award's history.[29] Rabbi Julia Neuberger, one of the judges, declared it "a disgrace" and left the event, later deeming the book to be "crap"; WHSmith's marketing manager called the award "an embarrassment to the whole book trade"; Waterstones in Glasgow sold a mere 13 copies of Kelman's book the following week.[30] In 1994, The Guardian's literary editor Richard Gott, citing the lack of objective criteria and the exclusion of American authors, described the prize as "a significant and dangerous iceberg in the sea of British culture that serves as a symbol of its current malaise".[12][31]

In 1996, A. L. Kennedy served as a judge; in 2001, she called the prize "a pile of crooked nonsense" with the winner determined by "who knows who, who's sleeping with who, who's selling drugs to who, who's married to who, whose turn it is".[27]

In 1997, the decision to award Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things proved controversial. Carmen Callil, chair of the previous year's Booker judges, called it an "execrable" book and said on television that it should not even have been on the shortlist. Booker Prize chairman Martyn Goff said Roy won because nobody objected, following the rejection by the judges of Bernard MacLaverty's shortlisted book due to their dismissal of him as "a wonderful short-story writer and that Grace Notes was three short stories strung together".[32]

2000–2019

Before 2001, each year's longlist of nominees was not publicly revealed.[33] From 2001, the longlisted novels started to be published each year, and in 2007 the number of nominees was capped at 12 or 13 each year.[14]

In 2001, Peter Carey won his second Booker Prize for True History of the Kelly Gang, a work now ranked by The Guardian as one of the 100 greatest novels written in English.[34] Carey is one of only four writers to have won the Booker Prize twice, the others being J. M. Coetzee, Hilary Mantel, and Margaret Atwood.

The Booker Prize created a permanent home for the archives from 1968 to present at Oxford Brookes University Library. The Archive, which encompasses the administrative history of the Prize from 1968 to date, collects together a diverse range of material, including correspondence, publicity material, copies of both the Longlists and the Shortlists, minutes of meetings, photographs and material relating to the awards dinner (letters of invitation, guest lists, seating plans). Embargoes of ten or twenty years apply to certain categories of material; examples include all material relating to the judging process and the Longlist prior to 2002.[35]

Between 2005 and 2008, the Booker Prize alternated between writers from Ireland and India. "Outsider" John Banville began this trend in 2005 when his novel The Sea was selected as a surprise winner:[36] Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of The Independent, famously condemned it as "possibly the most perverse decision in the history of the award" and rival novelist Tibor Fischer poured scorn on Banville's victory.[37] Kiran Desai of India won in 2006. Anne Enright's 2007 victory came about due to a jury badly split over Ian McEwan's novel On Chesil Beach. The following year it was India's turn again, with Aravind Adiga narrowly defeating Enright's fellow Irishman Sebastian Barry.[38]

2015 logo of the then Man Booker Prize

Historically, the winner of the Booker Prize had been required to be a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe. It was announced on 18 September 2013 that future Booker Prize awards would consider authors from anywhere in the world, so long as their work was in English and published in the UK.[39] This change proved controversial in literary circles. Former winner A. S. Byatt and former judge John Mullan said the prize risked diluting its identity, whereas former judge A. L. Kennedy welcomed the change.[2][3][40] Following this expansion, the first winner not from the Commonwealth, Ireland, or Zimbabwe was American Paul Beatty in 2016. Another American, George Saunders, won the following year.[41] In 2018, publishers sought to reverse the change, arguing that the inclusion of American writers would lead to homogenisation, reducing diversity and opportunities everywhere, including in America, to learn about "great books that haven't already been widely heralded".[40]

Man Group announced in early 2019 that the year's prize would be the last of eighteen under their sponsorship.[42] A new sponsor, Crankstart – a charitable foundation run by Sir Michael Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman – then announced it would sponsor the award for five years, with the option to renew for another five years. The award title was changed to simply "The Booker Prize".[43][44]

In 2019, despite having been unequivocally warned against doing so, the foundation's jury – under the chair Peter Florence – split the prize, awarding it to two authors, in breach of a rule established in 1993. Florence justified the decision, saying: "We came down to a discussion with the director of the Booker Prize about the rules. And we were told quite firmly that the rules state that you can only have one winner ... and as we have managed the jury all the way through on the principle of consensus, our consensus was that it was our decision to flout the rules and divide this year's prize to celebrate two winners."[45] The two were British writer Bernardine Evaristo for her novel Girl, Woman, Other and Canadian writer Margaret Atwood for The Testaments. Evaristo's win marked the first time the Booker had been awarded to a black woman, while Atwood's win, at 79, made her the oldest winner.[46][47] Atwood had also previously won the prize in 2000.

2020–present

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual award ceremony was replaced with a livestream from the Roundhouse in London, without the shortlisted authors in attendance. The winner was Douglas Stuart for his debut novel Shuggie Bain, which had been rejected by more than 30 publishers.[48]

2021's small-scale ceremony, once again impacted by COVID-19, saw South African writer Damon Galgut, who had been shortlisted in 2003 and 2010, win the prize for The Promise.

2022 saw a reimagined winner ceremony at the Roundhouse, hosted by comedian Sophie Duker and featuring a keynote speech by singer Dua Lipa.[49] The prize was won by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

In 2023, for the first time, the shortlist featured three writers named Paul[50] (Paul Lynch, Paul Murray and Paul Harding). The prize was won by Irish writer Paul Lynch for his novel Prophet Song. In the media, reaction was mixed. In The Guardian, Justine Jordan wrote that "This is a novel written to jolt the reader awake to truths we mostly cannot bear to admit",[51] while in The Telegraph, Cal Revely-Calder wrote that Prophet Song is "political fiction at its laziest" and "the weak link in a strong shortlist".[52]

The 2024 prize was won by Samantha Harvey for Orbital, the first book set in space to win the prize and, at 136 pages, the second shortest book to win the Booker[53] after Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore. Harvey was also the first woman to win the Booker since 2019[54]. Since winning the Booker, Orbital became a UK bestseller, selling over 20,000 print copies in the UK in the week following its win, making it the fastest selling winner of the Booker Prize since records began.[55]

John Sutherland, who was a judge for the 1999 prize, was reported as saying in 2001:

There is a well-established London literary community. Rushdie doesn't get shortlisted now because he has attacked that community. That is not a good game plan if you want to win the Booker. Norman Mailer has found the same thing in the US – you have to "be a citizen" if you want to win prizes. The real scandal is that [Martin] Amis has never won the prize. In fact, he has only been shortlisted once and that was for Time's Arrow, which was not one of his strongest books. That really is suspicious. He pissed people off with Dead Babies and that gets lodged in the culture. There is also the feeling that he has always looked towards America.[27]

Judging

The selection process for the winner of the prize commences with the appointment of a panel of five judges, which changes each year. Gaby Wood, the chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, chooses the judges in consultation with an advisory committee made up of senior figures from the UK publishing industry. On rare occasions a judge may be selected a second time. Judges are selected from amongst leading literary critics, writers, academics and leading public figures.

Unlike some other literary prizes, each judge is expected to read all of the books that have been submitted. (In 2023, the judges read 163 books over seven months.[56]) After doing so, they select a longlist of 12 or 13 titles (the "Booker Dozen"), before each reading those books for a second time. They then select a shortlist of six titles, and read the six books a third time before selecting a winner.

The Booker judging process and the very concept of a "best book" being chosen by a small number of literary insiders is controversial for many. The Guardian introduced the "Not the Booker Prize" voted for by readers partly as a reaction to this.[57] Author Amit Chaudhuri wrote: "The idea that a 'book of the year' can be assessed annually by a bunch of people – judges who have to read almost a book a day – is absurd, as is the idea that this is any way of honouring a writer."[58]

The author Julian Barnes once dismissed the prize as "posh bingo"[59] for the apparently arbitrary way winners are selected. On winning the prize in 2011 he joked that he had revised his opinion, telling reporters that he had realised "the judges are the wisest heads in literary Christendom".

For many years, the winner was announced at a formal, black-tie dinner in London's Guildhall in early October. However, in 2020, with COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in place, the winner ceremony was broadcast in November from the Roundhouse, in partnership with the BBC.[60] The ceremony returned to the Roundhouse for a more casual in-person ceremony in 2022, before moving to Old Billingsgate in London in 2023 and 2024.

Winners

See also: List of winners and nominated authors of the Booker Prize
Year Author Title Genre(s) Country
1969 P. H. Newby[61] Something to Answer For Literary fiction  UK
1970 Bernice Rubens[62] The Elected Member Literary fiction  UK
1971 V. S. Naipaul[63] In a Free State Literary fiction  UK
 TTO
1972 John Berger[64] G. Experimental literature  UK
1973 J. G. Farrell[65] The Siege of Krishnapur Literary fiction  UK
 IRL
1974 Nadine Gordimer[66] The Conservationist Literary fiction  ZAF
Stanley Middleton[67] Holiday Literary fiction  UK
1975 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Heat and Dust Historical fiction  UK
Germany
1976 David Storey[68] Saville Literary fiction  UK
1977 Paul Scott[69] Staying On Literary fiction  UK
1978 Iris Murdoch[70] The Sea, the Sea Philosophical novel  UK
 IRL
1979 Penelope Fitzgerald[71] Offshore Literary fiction  UK
1980 William Golding[72] Rites of Passage Literary fiction  UK
1981 Salman Rushdie[73] Midnight's Children Magic realism  UK
1982 Thomas Keneally[74] Schindler's Ark Biographical novel  AUS
1983 J. M. Coetzee[75] Life & Times of Michael K Literary fiction  ZAF
1984 Anita Brookner[76] Hotel du Lac Literary fiction  UK
1985 Keri Hulme[77] The Bone People Mystery novel  NZL
1986 Kingsley Amis[78] The Old Devils Comic novel  UK
1987 Penelope Lively[79] Moon Tiger Literary fiction  UK
1988 Peter Carey[80] Oscar and Lucinda Historical fiction  AUS
1989 Kazuo Ishiguro[81] The Remains of the Day Historical fiction  UK
1990 A. S. Byatt[82] Possession Historiographic metafiction  UK
1991 Ben Okri[83] The Famished Road Magic realism  NGR
1992 Michael Ondaatje[84] The English Patient Historiographic metafiction  CAN
 LKA
Barry Unsworth[85] Sacred Hunger Historical fiction  UK
1993 Roddy Doyle[86] Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha Literary fiction  IRL
1994 James Kelman[87] How Late It Was, How Late Stream of consciousness  UK
1995 Pat Barker[88] The Ghost Road War novel  UK
1996 Graham Swift[89] Last Orders Literary fiction  UK
1997 Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things Literary fiction  IND
1998 Ian McEwan[90] Amsterdam Literary fiction  UK
1999 J. M. Coetzee[91] Disgrace Literary fiction  ZAF
2000 Margaret Atwood[92] The Blind Assassin Historical fiction  CAN
2001 Peter Carey[93] True History of the Kelly Gang Historical fiction  AUS
2002 Yann Martel[94] Life of Pi Fantasy and adventure fiction  CAN
2003 DBC Pierre[95] Vernon God Little Black comedy  AUS
2004 Alan Hollinghurst[96] The Line of Beauty Historical fiction  UK
2005 John Banville The Sea Literary fiction  IRL
2006 Kiran Desai[97] The Inheritance of Loss Literary fiction  IND
2007 Anne Enright The Gathering Literary fiction  IRL
2008 Aravind Adiga[98] The White Tiger Literary fiction  IND
2009 Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall Historical fiction  UK
2010 Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question Comic novel  UK
2011 Julian Barnes[99] The Sense of an Ending Literary fiction  UK
2012 Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies Historical fiction  UK
2013 Eleanor Catton[100] The Luminaries Historical fiction  NZL
2014 Richard Flanagan[101] The Narrow Road to the Deep North Historical fiction  AUS
2015 Marlon James[102] A Brief History of Seven Killings Historical/experimental novel  JAM
2016 Paul Beatty[103] The Sellout Satire  USA
2017 George Saunders Lincoln in the Bardo Historical/experimental novel  USA
2018 Anna Burns[104] Milkman Literary fiction  UK
2019 Margaret Atwood The Testaments Literary fiction  CAN
Bernardine Evaristo[105] Girl, Woman, Other Experimental literature  UK
2020 Douglas Stuart[106] Shuggie Bain Literary fiction  UK
 USA
2021 Damon Galgut[107] The Promise Literary fiction  ZAF
2022 Shehan Karunatilaka[108] The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida Fantasy  LKA
2023 Paul Lynch[109] Prophet Song Dystopian novel  IRL
2024 Samantha Harvey[110] Orbital Literary fiction  UK

Special awards

In 1971, the nature of the prize was changed so that it was awarded to novels published in that year instead of in the previous year; therefore, no novel published in 1970 could win the Booker Prize. This was rectified in 2010 by the awarding of the "Lost Man Booker Prize" to J. G. Farrell's Troubles.[111]

In 1993, a special Booker of Bookers prize was awarded to mark the prize's 25th anniversary. Three previous judges of the award, Malcolm Bradbury, David Holloway and W. L. Webb, met and chose Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, the 1981 winner, as "the best novel out of all the winners".[112]

In 2006, the Man Booker Prize set up a "Best of Beryl" prize, for the author Beryl Bainbridge, who had been nominated five times and yet failed to win once. The prize is said to count as a Booker Prize. The nominees were An Awfully Big Adventure, Every Man for Himself, The Bottle Factory Outing, The Dressmaker and Master Georgie, which won.

Similarly, The Best of the Booker was awarded in 2008 to celebrate the prize's 40th anniversary. A shortlist of six winners was chosen — Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Coetzee' Disgrace, Carey's Oscar and Lucinda, Gordimer's The Conservationist, Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, and Barker's The Ghost Road — and the decision was left to a public vote; the winner was again Midnight's Children.[113][114]

In 2018, to celebrate the 50th anniversary, the Golden Man Booker was awarded. One book from each decade was selected by a panel of judges: Naipaul's In a Free State (the 1971 winner), Lively's Moon Tiger (1987), Ondaatje's The English Patient (1992), Mantel's Wolf Hall (2009) and Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo (2017). The winner, by popular vote, was The English Patient.[115]

Nomination

Since 2014, each publisher's imprint may submit a number of titles based on their longlisting history (previously they could submit two). Non-longlisted publishers can submit one title, publishers with one or two longlisted books in the previous five years can submit two, publishers with three or four longlisted books are allowed three submissions, and publishers with five or more longlisted books can have four submissions.

In addition, previous winners of the prize are automatically considered if they enter new titles. 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.[116][39]

A separate prize for which any living writer in the world may qualify, the Man Booker International Prize, was inaugurated in 2005. Until 2015, it was given every two years to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation. In 2016, the award was significantly reconfigured, and is now given annually to a single book in English translation, with a £50,000 prize for the winning title, shared equally between author and translator. The award has been known as the International Booker Prize since the Man Group ended its association with the prizes in 2019.

A Russian version of the Booker Prize was created in 1992 called the Booker-Open Russia Literary Prize, also known as the Russian Booker Prize. In 2007, Man Group plc established the Man Asian Literary Prize, an annual literary award given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year.

For many years, as part of The Times's Literature Festival in Cheltenham, a Booker event was held on the last Saturday of the festival. Four guest speakers/judges debated a shortlist of four books from a given year from before the introduction of the Booker Prize, and a winner was chosen. Unlike the real Booker Prize (1969 through 2014), writers from outside the Commonwealth were also considered. 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. In 2015, the winner for 1915 was Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, beating The Thirty-Nine Steps (John Buchan), Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham), Psmith, Journalist (P. G. Wodehouse) and The Voyage Out (Virginia Woolf).[117]

See also

References

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  2. ^ a b "Meet The Man Booker Prize 2014 Judges". The Booker Prizes. 12 December 2013.
  3. ^ a b "'A surprise and a risk': Reaction to Booker Prize upheaval". BBC News. 18 September 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
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  5. ^ "The Booker Prize | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 24 September 2022.
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  7. ^ Gaby Wood at The Booker Prizes.
  8. ^ Flood, Alison (30 April 2015). "Gaby Wood, head of books at Daily Telegraph, appointed as new literary director of Booker prize foundation". The Guardian.
  9. ^ Jennifer (20 April 2015), "Booker Prize Foundation Hints at New Direction with Appointment of Gaby Wood as Literary Director", Books Live, Sunday Times (South Africa).
  10. ^ Hoover, Bob (10 February 2008). "'Gathering' storm clears for prize winner Enright". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 10 February 2008. In America, literary prizes are greeted with the same enthusiasm as a low Steelers draft choice. Not so in the British Isles, where the $98,000 Man Booker Fiction Prize can even push Amy Winehouse off the front page – at least for a day. The atmosphere around the award approaches sports-championship proportions, with London bookies posting the ever-changing odds on the nominees. Then, in October when the winner is announced live on the BBC TV evening news, somebody always gets ticked off.
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