19.09.13 | Bookseller Staff Philip Hensher, who was nominated for the prize in 2008 for The Northern Clemency (Fourth Estate) wrote in the Guardian: "When eligibility shifts from the UK, Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe to English-language novels published in the UK, it is hard to see how the American novel will fail to dominate. Not through excellence, necessarily, but simply through an economic super-power exerting its own literary tastes."
He added: "I don't think I've ever heard so many novelists say, as over the last two or three days, 'Well, we might as well just give up, then.' It seems quite baffling to many writers that a major prize that has so successfully promoted them should move its terms so radically and for no good reason."
The Daily Mail headlined its piece on the news "The Yanks are coming!", and said: "The decision to open the Man Booker to US writers has prompted a raft of criticism from the literary world, with many fearing the move will prevent fledgling British authors from gaining recognition." It added: "This year’s shortlist, announced last week, has already raised eyebrows for its distinctly American feel."
One of this year's judges, classicist Natalie Haynes, wrote in the Independent that the addition of more international writers should see the quality of submissions go up.
She said: "Has British literary fiction met its end? You’d think so, if you heard the despairing howls of authors this week. Rumours had been swirling, and now it’s been confirmed: the Man Booker Prize is now open to Americans, and won’t the US crush all before it like the cultural juggernaut it is? How can Brits thrive when population size alone means the Yanks will demolish their chances?"
However, she added: "In theory, that means that the standard of books submitted should go up. Any book that’s been picked up by first one publisher, and then another on the opposite side of the Atlantic, should have something going for it."
Professor John Mullan, a former Booker judge, told the BBC that the changes were "a risk". He said: "It's going to make it more and more likely that the competition is seen as a series of face-offs—a Ryder Cup of literature. It's going to be Toni Morrison versus Hilary Mantel, or Jonathan Franzen against Ian McEwan, and I think that's really unfortunate. The great thing about the prize is that there's always room in it for surprises. We shouldn't forget that, in 1981, when Salman Rushdie won with Midnight's Children, no-one had ever heard of him."
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