The Telegraph's Head of Books and one of the five judges of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction looks back at the selection process that caused such a fuss.
Yesterday at midday, five people met in central London. Each put in the centre of a table a folded piece of paper, on which they had written the title of a book. And by around 2pm, there was champagne.
You will know by now that the Man Booker judges chose as the winner of the 2011 prize Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending. Exactly what happened in those two hours I am not, naturally, at liberty to disclose. But I have no reservations about telling you that there was great joy in awarding the prize to Barnes, and that it marks an excellent moment for British fiction.
Along with my fellow judges – Chris Mullin, former Labour MP and author of best-selling diaries; Susan Hill, legendary novelist and publisher; Matthew d’Ancona, eloquent Sunday Telegraph columnist and former editor of The Spectator; and Stella Rimington, novelist, memoirist and first female director-general of MI5 – I’ve been surprised and rather excited by the fuss caused by the Man Booker this year. I can’t remember a time when people paid so much attention.
Much of it has come in the form of complaint, it’s true; but when there are so many good books whose omission from a shortlist merit complaint, that is, surely, a sign of a very good year in publishing.
The debate, which began in early September when our shortlist was announced and omitted Alan Hollinghurst, centred on the question of whether the Man Booker was “dumbing down”. The antagonists fell, broadly, into the following categories: previously shortlisted novelists whose new books didn’t make it; agents of previously shortlisted novelists whose new books didn’t make it; publishers of previously shortlisted novelists, etc, etc.
This was to be expected. It is traditional for all prizes to be declared rubbish and for all prize judges to be declared idiots, until such time as the people who have been saying these things win.
But when our shortlist became the fastest-selling since records began, all hell broke loose. Clearly, our choices must be too “commercial” and not “literary” enough. Significantly, none of this discussion was a response to the actual books on the list.
More at The Telegraph.
This was to be expected. It is traditional for all prizes to be declared rubbish and for all prize judges to be declared idiots, until such time as the people who have been saying these things win.
But when our shortlist became the fastest-selling since records began, all hell broke loose. Clearly, our choices must be too “commercial” and not “literary” enough. Significantly, none of this discussion was a response to the actual books on the list.
More at The Telegraph.
