Man Booker Prize
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The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known as simply the Booker Prize, is one of the world's most prestigious literary prizes, and awarded each year for the best original full-length novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland in the English language. A separate prize for which any living author in the world may qualify, the Man Booker International Prize, was inaugurated in 2005. A Russian version of the Booker Prize, the Russian Booker Prize, was created in 1992.
The winner of the Man Booker will generally be assured of international fame and success. It is also a mark of distinction for an author's work to be selected for inclusion on the Booker longlist or shortlist.
The prize was originally known as the Booker-McConnell Prize, after the company Booker-McConnell plc 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 plc, 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 Man Group.
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.To maintain the consistent excellence of the prize, judges are selected from amongst leading literary critics, writers, academics and notable public figures.
Winners
Some statistics
- Publishers may submit books for consideration and judges may call for books to be submitted. In 2002, 110 were submitted and another ten were called.
- 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 134 authors on the shortlists.
- *Of the 97 novelists nominated once, there were 13 winners and three co-winners.
- *Of the 19 novelists nominated twice, there were seven winners and one two-time winner (J. M. Coetzee).
- *Of the ten novelists nominated three times, there were four winners, one co-winner and one two-time winner (Peter Carey).
- *Of the five four-time nominees, all but William Trevor have won once. The other four-time nominees are 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 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.
See also
- The Commonwealth Writers Prize
- The National Book Award
- The Prix Goncourt
- The Whitbread Book Awards
- The Governor General's Award
External links
- [The official website of the Man Booker Prize]
- [The most honored Booker shortlisted books]
- [Booker Prize in English Literature]
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