Friday, March 27, 2015

Martyn Goff obituary - Bookseller and prime mover behind the Booker prize

Martyn Goff engineered press coverage of the Booker like ‘a happy wizard’, using ‘carefully placed leaks, official  interviews, and, occasionally, strategic misinformation.’
Martyn Goff engineered press coverage of the Booker like ‘a happy wizard’, using ‘carefully placed leaks, official interviews, and, occasionally, strategic misinformation.’ Photograph: Valancourt Books
Although bookselling framed his professional life, Martyn Goff, who has died aged 91, will be remembered most for his 34 years running what became under his stewardship Britain’s premier literary award – the Booker, now the Man Booker prize. Goff took over as administrator of the prize in 1973, its fifth year.

As director of the National Book League (NBL), which had been near-moribund until his arrival in 1970, he caught the notice of press and public alike the following year by creating an innovative literary festival, the Bedford Square Book Bang, in London. Book events at the time were generally stuffy affairs, but despite appalling weather that helped turn the Bloomsbury square into a quagmire, the Book Bang attracted some 50,000 visitors. Little more than a year later, the Publishers Association, which had launched the Booker, passed the administering of the prize to the reinvigorated League.
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