Philip Roth has won the £60,000 Man Booker International Prize. Angry about the choice, Booker judge Carmen Callil resigned in protest.
It was the fourth time the bi-annual prize has been awarded–previous winners included Ismail Kadare, Chinua Achebe, and Alice Munro. Roth (pictured via Nancy Crampton) had this comment: “One of the particular pleasures I’ve had as a writer is to have my work read internationally despite all the heartaches of translation that that entails. I hope the prize will bring me to the attention of readers around the world who are not familiar with my work. This is a great honour and I’m delighted to receive it.”

The New Yorker dove into the history behind the angry judge: “Callil is a founder of Virago Press, a British imprint which is the largest publisher devoted to women’s writing in the world. In 1996, it published, Leaving a Doll’s House, a memoir by Roth’s ex-wife Claire Bloom, which told all about their marriage and then some in scathing tones (here’s a review at the Times).”

Over at the Philip Roth Society, a blog post listed the gambling odds for different contenders for the prize. Roth was the 7/2 favorite.

More:
Story at Globe & Mail.
The New York Times

Footnote:
I am attending a session at the Sydney Writers Festival today called The Final Judgement in which the Chair of the judging panel, Dr.Rick Gekoski, will be talking about the judging process. I'll report later.