The Week In Books: The Booker makes a smaller splash By Boyd Tonkin writing in The Independent, Friday, 12 September 2008

Behind the storm-in-a-wineglass feuds that surround the Man Booker Prize, a true and even tragic sub-plot may be starting to unfold. To be mass-market blunt rather than literary-novel elliptical: is the British audience for ambitious fiction dying off, losing faith, or just drifting away? As usual, I feel a yearly spurt of outrage, bewilderment or gratification – this time, respectively, at the exclusion of James Kelman from the long-list, of Michelle de Kretser from the shortlist, and at the judges' recognition of the far-from-shouty merits of Linda Grant.

It does seem, however, as if a dwindling band of domestic readers shares this annual passion. In the five weeks after the long-list announcement on 29 July, the 13 titles of the "Booker dozen" sold fewer than 14,000 UK copies; on average, barely 1,000 each. This is, frankly, pathetic. Writers and retailers will pray the shortlist delivers a bigger boost. Before the early-1980s Booker battles caught the public imagination, the prize tiptoed politely from year to year as a small-time coterie event. Now, a quarter-century of starlight has begun to fade.

Both marketplace and media offer ever-shrinking space for "literary fiction". The prize ceremony, which once secured its own BBC programme, now has to make do with a scrappy insert in the news. The Orange and Costa contests loom far larger as heavyweight rivals. Rather sadly, award director Ion Trewin has been reduced to branding the Booker as "Richard and Judy for grown-ups". Adland lore: insult the competition, and you look rattled.

Redad his full piece at The Independent online.