Blogs and Stories
The Booker Prize's Passage to India
Last night the honor went to a first-time Indian novelist, Aravind Adiga, for The White Tiger a murder story set among his country's very rich and very poor. Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, reports.
There can never be a Nobel-style row over whether an American wins the Man Booker Prize.
This is the international literary award that Americans are banned from entering.
Only British, Irish and 'Commonwealth' writers are eligible for the £50,000 cheque—which last night went to a first-time Indian novelist, Aravind Adiga, for The White Tiger, a murder story set among his country's very rich and very poor.
The 'Booker', as it’s commonly known, has over the past 40 years, made itself the world's second most famous award after the Nobels - or so its sponsor proclaimed last night at a dinner of London's literati in the imperial grandeur of the Guildhall.
The man who did most to make that so is Adiga's fellow Indian, Salman Rushdie, whose novel Midnight's Children won the prize itself in 1981, the 'Booker of Bookers' in 1993, and the 2008 ‘Best of Bookers’.
This is a prize ever more appreciated by itself—as well as by publishers who always have hopes (often dashed) that it will boost their sales.
Sometimes the Booker does get the cash-tills ringing—and The White Tiger was proudly proclaimed as ‘a page-turner that knocked my socks off’ by the Chairman of the judges, former government minister, Michael Portillo.
His publishers will certainly hope so. Book shops are anxious places. Amazon is increasingly the only place where literary fiction of the Booker variety has a solid sale. No one last night expected the coming year to be anything but worse.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
The Best of Brit Lit
Peter Stothard is editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He was editor of The Times of London from 1992-2002. He is the author of Thirty Days, a Downing Street diary of his time with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq war and On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey Through Ancient Italy will be published in January.
The Best of Brit Lit
Peter Stothard is editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He was editor of The Times of London from 1992-2002. He is the author of Thirty Days, a Downing Street diary of his time with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq war and On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey Through Ancient Italy will be published in January.
The Best of Brit Lit
Peter Stothard is editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He was editor of The Times of London from 1992-2002. He is the author of Thirty Days, a Downing Street diary of his time with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq war and On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey Through Ancient Italy will be published in January.
I have a goal of reading all Booker Prize winners. I find this award to be the most true to the highest form of fiction. One that missed the list, however, but should be read by everyone who loves a good story well told; the meter of language itself as found in The English Patient, All the Pretty Horses, As I Lay Dying... treat yourself to Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson.
oops
I don't have much in the order of what I think of in my life as a privately owned individual, but when it comes down to what I'd like to own it comes down to only me. And when what I look into when what I like comes into play, I find that not only what I find helps me a lot it shows me that I have some type of stability in that order. If and when what I like to find as the best form and order, I try to look for something in the way of where everything is when I try more.
I found all my books more entertaining when they're somehow based on the world around me, sometimes the world has found it's self more and more like the interracial world that sometimes not only gives the variety I need for that something more I need to do, it gives me the literature.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.